


The Phosphenes in Your Eyes, Darling

by Misaya



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Bisexuality, Drug Addiction, Eventual Levi/Erwin Smith, F/M, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Levi/Petra Ral, One-Sided Attraction, Psychotropic Drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-04-17 04:32:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 24,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4652349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misaya/pseuds/Misaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi loves the idea of Petra, but he finds the woman herself lacking, not quite up to par with how he thinks she should be. Similarly, Levi loves Erwin, but the idea of him has him questioning the shaky foundation of his beliefs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CloudNineKitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudNineKitty/gifts), [Levistea](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Levistea).



It was a recent promotion to programs data coordinator that had Levi here, the soles of his beat-up trainers gumming to the sticky floor of Babe18. The bass thumped rampant through his head, some electro-funk that he was sure all the young people were listening to these days. Petra was off at the bar, drowning in an open tab, her phone probably making the rounds up and down the gleaming length of mahogany, numbers being tapped into her contacts book. 

Friday night slash Saturday morning, and already she was making plans for Friday nights slash Saturday mornings far in advance. Levi loved her for it, crass planning with attempts at organizing love into neat little squares on her calendar. They would talk about it over cheap instant coffee the next morning, burning their tongues, and Levi would ignore the tiny seeds of jealousy she sewed through the field of his heart with every word, every encounter. 

He loved, and he hated himself for it. The flames of Petra's affection burnt out quickly, rapturously, for one night only and no longer, and he was at that point in his life, twenty-four and old beyond his time, where he found himself wanting to smolder already. 

The alcohol hadn't helped. It had loosened his tongue, freed his inhibitions, had him reaching for her hand across a dark sticky table covered with empty peanut shells and sticky with rings of condensation from drinks long consumed. I think I might love you, he'd wanted to say. I think I might need you. 

Maybe he'd even said it, mouthing the syllables silently, just one step closer to admittance. And, as they'd been taking wing, filling their sails with his breath, she had giggled and told him that she thought the young man two tables away in the bright orange tee was staring at her, and she'd better be polite and say hi. If Levi didn't mind, of course? This, with a questioning look. 

He'd opened his mouth. Closed it. Considering. His hesitation unwound him, and she'd been teetering off, long legs high heels, a creamy blur in the darkness, before he'd been able to reach out and implore her to stay. 

That had been ages ago. Minutes, hours, days, years. Time passed oddly, in flashes of hot blinding lights that swept across the stage to illuminate glistening silver poles propped upright in their centers. Smoke filtered through the air from hundreds of mouths frothing steam from tiny cherries of cigarettes, plumes of grey and ash tickling violently at the back of Levi's throat with inky fingers and making him cough, making him light-headed, making him giddy. He cast about for Petra, but the work of more than a few shots had deadened his limbs, weighing him down. 

He timed his glances around the club with the rotation of the strobe lights, blue, purple, green, red, blue, purple, green, red, eyes lighting upon every flash of honeyed hair they lit upon. There she was, over in the corner, kissing someone with a scruffy beard over the shoulder of the guy she was dancing with. Levi was beyond the point of irritation. Comfortably sloshed, he wanted nothing more than to haul her into a taxi and make their ways home. Take a hot shower, curl up in bed with a nice book while the words spun away from him. It sounded luxurious.

The DJ said something over the microphone that Levi couldn't quite make out, and the crowd was surging forward, eager cheers pushing him in a tidal wave towards the stage where the lights had focused, gleaming hot, on the slick polished wood. He tried to fight through the crush of people, sloshing his drink left and right over hands and shirtsleeves, but by the time he got to where he'd seen Petra last, she was nowhere to be found. 

Sighing, drunken dejection, Levi turned back to the stage, where a woman had just strutted down the catwalk, silver stilettos, bronzed skin, crimson lips, to straddle the pole. Perhaps the night could be salvaged. Perhaps he didn't need Petra. Perhaps he was drunk, sad on the euphoria of his hopelessness, and perhaps it was a combination of all of the above. 

* * *

 

The ice in his rum and Coke had watered down a long time ago, and the plastic cup was slippery with condensation against his palm. His mouth was dry as he watched the new arrival on the dimly lit stage all but grinding up against the metal pole in the center. Levi licked his lips, chapped against the sandpaper of his tongue, and vaguely wondered if the thudding throb of his heart inside his Nirvana T-shirt could be attributed to the alcohol running rampant through his bloodstream. 

Then the man on the stage did a little twirl, his blonde hair catching the blue and green neon lights flirting through the darkness, and Levi decided abruptly that it was definitely not the alcohol. Leather met lightly tanned skin, licking up his legs, the boots cutting off at his thighs, and Levi all but swooned as the man did something particularly dexterous and lovely with his hips against the pole. 

Perhaps he’d died and this was his heavenly reward for being a good citizen. That little nibble to the already swollen lower lip was his present for recycling faithfully every Thursday, the leather thigh highs were a gift for donating blood regularly every two months, and - oh God - that little sashay down the stage towards him was surely an offering from the higher beings for eating all his fruits and vegetables as a child. Perhaps it was karmic retribution, the universe's acknowledgment of his one-sided affections, a shout out to the little lost loves swept away in the sea.

No. Pay attention. Don't think about Petra, he scolded himself sternly. He deserved his happinesses, ill gotten though they might be, and he deserved at least this one night of sheer irrationality and abandon.

Upon closer inspection, the stripper was wearing boy shorts, a tight crimson number that allowed for lavish appreciation of the swells of his hipbones and left nothing about the generous bulge of his cock to the imagination. Levi was all but frothing at the mouth, thoughts of Petra dissipating in champagne bubbles, and he nearly sloshed the watery remainder of his rum and Coke to the already-sticky club floor as the blonde flashed him a grin. 

It probably wasn’t even for him, was probably just a ploy in that general direction for more tips, but Levi was weak and his fingers were already fumbling in the pocket of his jeans for his wallet. He tugged out a bill without looking at the denomination, holding it up with shaking fingers, and swore he could hear angelic choir music over the thumping bass as the stripper reached out and plucked it from his hand. 

He eyed it for a moment, before grinning and flashing Levi a positively wicked grin, pearly whites and electric blue eyes, blowing him a kiss that almost bowled Levi over. He stumbled, knocking against the person next to him, and received a cold slurry of gin and tonic down the back of his shirt for his troubles.

The night had been more than salvaged, and he wanted to find Petra, combing through the sea of people, to laugh triumphant, victorious, exhilarated, and tell her that he'd discovered he didn't need her after all. 


	2. Chapter 2

Levi woke up the next morning, his head throbbing to the rapidly fading remembrances of the pounding bass from the nightclub of the night before. The black ink of the entry stamp had smudged all over his left hand, the vague outline of a circle, the blurry curves of a figure 8, and Levi groaned as he rolled over to press his cheek against the cool side of his pillow, crisp and cotton clean against his skin. The texture of the pillowcase beneath his cheek was unfamiliar, coarse, rough, the smell of lavender and citrus perfume weaving its way through the fabric. Levi’s eyes struggled open, darting around for a moment before settling on a strand of strawberry blonde hair that disappeared beneath the fluffy white blanket.

He found it reassuring, comforting, stabilizing, even, tracing the strand of silky hair, coiled on the pillowcases in ringlets that were already losing the shape of their curls. Petra was lying only a few scant inches away, and Levi was sure if he reached out, just nudged his hand forward just the tiniest bit, he’d be able to touch her. The curve of her elbow, the hollow of her palm, soft skin underneath his fingertips. But his limbs were weighted down to the mattress, and he savored the peaceful chirping of early morning birds as he closed his eyes again, trying to remember the events of last night and what had transpired from A to B to have him waking up in Petra’s bed.

A promotion. Long lines at the front of the club, but Petra had said something to the bouncer in passing, and he’d ushered them through velvet ropes, ignoring the protests of the other people in line, taking their wrists in meaty fingers and stamping the backs of their hands with dark ink. The tang and burn of alcohol slipping down his throat, bitter tequila chased with lime, and then later, rum and Cokes, sweet soda masking the flavor. Dangerous. And then what?

Levi pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to remember, the phosphenes beneath his eyelids dancing red, blue, white, green, across his vision. He let up, nausea building in the back of his throat as he stumbled out of bed, falling to his knees on the hardwood flooring as the world swayed violently around him, pitching like a sailboat in a storm.

His wallet clicked out of the pocket of his jeans as he regained his balance, the rough denim irritating against his legs. It sprawled out on the floor, its limp leather wings open for inspection, and Levi grimaced as he bent down to pick it up, clinging to the edge of the mattress for support.

Its surface was sticky with the memories of past drinks, regret, and chagrin. Oh, yes. He remembered now.

There had been a stripper, a glory of a man, masculinity further outlined by the fact that he’d been encased in vestments of femininity. Crimson. Gold. Levi had been smitten, had been vulnerable from Petra’s rejection and his own weaknesses for the aesthetic and the beautiful. A kiss blown in his direction, and Levi rubbed at his cheek, ruefully, as if the touch would make it real, would make it a tangible flower blooming into fruitful existence.

Had he and Petra kissed? Levi wondered to himself, tracing the swell of his lower lip and checking for tenderness. There was none, but surely that didn’t mean anything. Had he admitted anything to her, his slurry confessions spilling out on the floor between them? Had she picked them up, polished them off, and placed them in her nightstand for safekeeping? Or had she looked at them, examining them for a breathless millisecond of hesitation, and then handed them back to him?

Petra sighed, a soft shuffling sound as she rearranged herself, her limbs spreading out to the space Levi had recently vacated. The blanket tugged downwards a bit, and Levi looked over the swell of her body, the tangled mop of her strawberry blonde hair, and froze.

There was someone else.

Someone with ash blonde hair, dark roots, the outline of a jaw that was already sporting the dark shadow of stubble. Limbs twined together with hers, heads bent close to each other’s, lips – kiss-swollen – just this side of touching, and Levi felt nausea rise vicious in his throat. He refused to swallow it away, and stumbled down the hall for the bathroom.

* * *

 

Anger colored his vision red as he glared at the pristine porcelain of the toilet tank in front of him, slouched over the bowl and gagging up the last liquid remains of the night before. Stupid, he wanted to hiss, his fingers curling into white-knuckled fists against the ceramic. Hopeful and naïve, just like a fucking child, and Levi was old enough to know better, should have stopped himself.

It was funny, he thought savagely to himself as he stood up, wiping his mouth with a square of toilet paper, flushing away the evidence of his foolishness and debauchery. A cosmic joke, certainly, love and all its trappings. To love and to lose and to be left wanting, a vicious cycle that Levi couldn’t seem to break out of.

The worst part was that he believed in it.

He scrubbed his hands with the decorative shell-shaped soaps in a glass dish next to the bathroom sink, refusing to look at his reflection in the mirror as the suds worked their ways between his fingers. The ink on the back of his hand dissolved away to swirl down the drain with vigorous scrubbing that stained the coral pink of a seashell with darkness, and he took savage pleasure in knowing that, no matter how small, he’d left a mark here. Petra probably wouldn’t even notice. Not for days, weeks, months, even, and by then, Levi would have hardened his heart into diamond. Or so he hoped.

* * *

 

It wasn’t until after he’d slammed unceremoniously out of the apartment and to a Coffee Bean on the corner that he started to calm down. The cool, crisp February air cleansed his lungs and forced the aching throb in his head into a neat little pinprick to the back of his mind. He stepped into the coffee shop, inhaling the rich, comforting scents of espresso and pastry, and pulled out his wallet from the back pocket of his dark-wash jeans to pay for his latte.

His heart leapt into his throat. The hundred was missing. The lucky one, one that his mother had given him before he’d gone off to college, tucking it into his pocket and asking him to please call every week, just so she could hear his voice.

He wanted to storm back to the apartment, wanted to scour every inch of it, wanted to blame Petra for everything, jilted love souring heavy against his tongue.

“Sir?” The barista at the register cleared her throat, and Levi looked up. Her eyes were blue, wide, framed with eyelashes clumped together with mascara, calm summer seas searching his stormy ones and waiting for a response. “Is everything alright?”

Aquamarine, reaching towards him in a blur to take a bill from his limp fingers, flashing a positively wicked smile at him, the neon strobe lights of the club filtering through his hair.

He fumbled with his credit card, sliding it across the polished counter to her, his fingers numb at the shock and horror of his own carelessness. She passed his card back to him, and he slotted it back into his wallet with trembling hands, stepping over to the side, his eyes glazed as he stared unseeingly at the menu items written in curling script on the chalkboards at the back of the café.

He’d given it away, traded a few last physical memories of his mother for a kiss that had fluttered across his cheekbones, for the promise of something that might be attraction, that might be acknowledgment, fueled with alcohol and the music that had been loud enough to drown out his own thoughts.

He needed to get it back, some way, somehow, and he left the café with his latte steaming in his hands, burning at his palms through the flimsy cardboard wrapper, plans for future Friday nights slash Saturday mornings rippling through his head.


	3. Chapter 3

By light of the day, Babe18 looked downright seedy, a place that Levi would never even look twice at, reminiscent of the old haunts in his childhood hometown. Its flashing neon sign was dark, and Levi could see the smudges of fingerprints on the tinted plate glass of the front window. The intimidating bouncer and long lines of velvet rope that had been present the night before were nowhere to be found. A ragged-looking teenager with music blasting from his headphones swept away the litter of cigarette butts on the sidewalk outside the stairwell to the club’s entrance. He stepped aside to let Levi past, humming to his music, his silhouette painting the sticky stairwell dark as he resumed his sweeping.

The soles of his shoes gummed to the floor, and Levi frowned as he made his way down the stairs, his fingertips trailing along the cement wall to catch his bearings. He shouldered his way through the push door, his eyes wide and waiting to adjust to the darkness.

“Club’s closed, buddy,” a voice called out to him from the general direction of the bar, a gleaming length of obsidian in the low fluorescent lights guttering overhead. Levi made his way over to the bar, fumbling about blindly with his hands in front of him, his eyes adjusting every second to the sickly luminescence. “You lose your keys here or something?”

The man behind the bar was tall, and the fluorescent lights stroked white through his light hair. He had a scruff resting bristles on his upper lip and along the strong lines of his jaw, and Levi craned his head back to look up at him as he settled his hands against the bar, trying not to wince at the stickiness of the memories of spilled drinks beneath his palms. The man was polishing a glass with a dishrag that looked, even in the dingy light, like it could have used a good generous application of bleach, and Levi shuddered at the thought that just last night he had wrapped his lips around the rim of just such a glass.

He set a bowl of glinting metal in front of Levi with a clank. Levi frowned down, squinting as he tried to focus on the jumble of keys in the bowl.

“No,” he murmured, feeling queasy again, the latte and the last vestiges of last night’s alcohol dancing roughly through his bloodstream. He pushed the bowl back towards the bartender, swallowing back sourness. “That’s not what I’m here about.”

“Oh?” the bartender asked, grabbing the bowl and placing it back beneath the bar for future unfortunate souls. “Why are you here then?”

Levi frowned, squinting at his dim reflection in the low gleaming surface of the bar. His silhouette had no features, amorphous and blurred, so he could no longer make out himself. Lost.

“I’m looking for someone,” he murmured, the request already sounding ridiculous to his own ears. “Do you think you could help me find him?”

“Now, that depends on who you’re looking for,” the bartender replied, polishing another rack of glasses that looked equally as dingy and water-stained as the first glass he’d pulled out. “There were hundreds of people in here last night.”

Hundred. The word recalled the emptiness in Levi’s wallet, and his gut twisted with the pang of remembrance. His mother’s fingers had been wrapped tightly around the folded green rectangle, pressing it into his hands with a finality that Levi hadn’t been able to recognize for what it was. She had sent him off into the world with a hundred dollars and a kiss, and Levi regretted his carelessness, his carefreeness, a fledgling bird being flung from the nest only to discover that he has wings and he can fly.

Levi wetted his lips, chapped against his tongue. “He was a stripper.”

The bartender stopped polishing the glasses. He leaned over the counter towards Levi, eyes narrowing as he lowered himself to Levi’s eye level.

“Listen here,” he murmured, his tone quiet, almost dangerous. “We don’t go giving out our employees’ personal information to patrons, just as a matter of principle. We’re not running a whorehouse. I’m sure you understand, yeah?”

Levi held up his hands, placating, cautious. The bartender was intimidating, looming over him, and Levi stepped backwards, toe heel toe heel, cautious along the sticky floor as he fumbled his way back to the club’s entrance.

Yes, he understood, perfectly, and yet the thought of the lucky Benjamin, his lucky benediction, plagued him incessantly. He was determined to find it, to get it back, and he could only pray that the stripper hadn’t already spent it or broken it into smaller change.

* * *

 

Petra walked in the office the next Monday at work, her high heels clicking on the checkered tile floor, her hair a fall of strawberry blonde waves over her shoulders as she set her handbag on her half of the large she shared with Levi. She was wearing a silver scarf wound nonchalantly around her neck, and Levi tried not to notice the fading purple outlines winding pathways up the slender column of her pulse.

She smiled at him, her eyes crinkling into curved commas, and Levi tried to calm his traitorous heart, which was currently pounding a furious staccato behind the confines of his rib cage. The constellation of her freckles danced across the planes of her cheekbones, and Levi wanted to tell her how pretty she looked. The words were on the tip of his tongue, ready to burst unaided into the open air between them, but she was already marching off to the office kitchenette to make herself a cup of coffee and the chance was swept away into the sea, falling flat and unheard in the space between them.

Levi’s heart wasn’t hard at all, despite his efforts to render it so. It was brittle, fragile, melting at even the slightest promise of love, dissolving at the way Petra sat down across from him, pulling stacks of paperwork towards her and firing up her desktop with a series of small chimes. He loved her, and hated loving her, tracing the rim of her porcelain coffee cup as she left lipstick kisses all over it. Black, no cream, two sugars, burbled out from a Green Mountain K-cup in the office Keurig. Levi would have been lying if he’d said he hadn’t touched his lips briefly to the rim of her mug when it was his turn to wash up, tasting the last bittersweet memories of coffee and the chalky aftertaste of her lipstick, incriminating red circles against the white.

And, despite the fact that Petra penciled love into her planner like a task to be performed, and never twice with the same person, Levi adored her to a fault. He believed, he hoped, he prayed that maybe he would be the first person to occupy her heart for more than a few hours, and he smiled through the bitter rains of her loves and the numerous one-time contacts in her phone’s address book because he thought maybe he’d devised an umbrella strong enough to withstand the tempest.

“Did you have a good time this weekend?” she asked him, sipping at her coffee, her scarf slipping a bit with every swallow until he could clearly see clear purple crescents marking at her pale skin. “I didn’t see you after a bit, but oh my God, what a night!”

Levi nodded noncommittally, his eyes glued on his computer monitor where lists of data scrolled by incomprehensibly, blurring into black and white numbers on his spreadsheet. “Yeah, it was fun,” he replied. She didn’t remember bringing him home, didn’t remember the way their bodies had curled together in the hollows of her mattress like quotation marks, the separation between them deafening in its distance. She remembered nothing, and Levi deleted an entire column of numbers in his anguish.

“We should do it again sometime,” Petra mused, tapping away on her keyboard. Her coffee cup was tilted towards him, the pressed outline of her kiss a deep shade of plum. “They’re having some sort of promo this weekend, if you’re interested?” She pulled her attention away from her monitor to fix him with a questioning look.

Friday nights slash Saturday mornings, and Levi was helpless to love. He agreed hastily, thoughts of the lucky hundred and Petra spilling through his mind to buoy him through the week, days and numbers and stained coffee cups passing through his hands.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you really going to love me when I'm gone?

The weekend couldn’t come quickly enough, the days ticking away with agonizing slowness. Levi ripped off the entries on his desk calendar glumly, one with daily puzzles to keep his mind sharp that Petra had given him for Christmas. Crosswords, miniature Sudokus, anagrams and word association games fluttered into the wire trash can beneath his desk, pencil marks and ink spatters all over the paper as he counted off the days. The hickeys on her neck faded away, purple into red into pink into gone, until the clear creamy skin of her neck peeked at him from the collars of her blouses.

Levi was barely able to concentrate on work, frowning at his computer monitor and trying to ignore the way his heart trembled with unspoken love and barely-restrained adoration for whenever Petra ran a hand through her strawberry blonde hair, pulling it away from her forehead in frustration as she tapped away on her keyboard. He had come this close to saying something, to hesitantly asking her out for lunch or for a coffee on the weekends, the words fighting for purchase from between his lips.

But no. Petra wasn’t his, couldn’t be his forever love like he wanted her to be. She was wild, she was free, and Levi had a sneaking suspicion that he loved her because he knew a love like theirs couldn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t last. The night he’d spent in her bed, drowsy limbs and half-remembered dreams, was best left at that, and Levi didn’t dare to push fate any farther than that.

But God, love was a cruel mistress, and he wished intensely for her to be flawed, a passing ugliness that he could seize and sink his teeth into to convince his wistful heart to give her away. She spent her breaks and lunch hours gazing at the screen of her phone, pursing plum-painted lips in alternating turns of disdain and amusement, and Levi ached to be the person on the receiving end of her hastily-tapped-back messages.

No, he thought savagely to himself, firing back bitter e-mails to the data coordinators the company had in other branches across the country, explaining the new input system he’d recently implemented. Hours of coding, several cups of black coffee, and a burning desire to empty his head of the smell of Petra’s perfume in the middle of the morning had driven his productivity to meteoric levels, and yet she still managed to creep her way into the crevices of his mind when he was least expecting it. A smile, a laugh, a pair of silvery ballet flats in the corner of his eye in the glossy window of a storefront. She was everywhere he looked, and everywhere he didn’t.

Friday afternoon rolled around, tortuously, torturously, and the office was starting to empty. Employees trickled out the door one by one, fingers already reaching up to loosen the tight knots of their silky ties, a manicured hand with nails run ragged tapping at the power buttons of computer monitors and banishing the thought of work in favor of the glorious freedoms of the weekend.

At a quarter to four, Petra flicked her eyes toward him. He swallowed, trying and failing to fight away the blush that threatened to spill across his face like poppies in water. She was smiling at him, he could see it from the corner of his eye, lips a soft sheen of cerise parting.

“You still on for tonight?” she asked, arching a perfectly plucked eyebrow at him, and his breath caught in his throat. The memory of rum and Cokes burned at the back of his throat, interspersed with the blurs of neon lights dancing through his mind, strawberry blonde ringlets cast over a pillow. Maybe this time they’d wake up alone, together, legs tangled and hearts in synchrony. “Maybe they’ll have that really hot stripper, the one from last time. You know the one? He was wearing these really tight red booty shorts.” She was grinning in reminiscence, her expression nearly lecherous, and a little crease of worry appeared between Levi’s eyebrows. No, that didn’t fit in with Petra at all, not the woman he loved, and he banished the thought from existence, preferring to feign ignorance of her vices.

And oh, there was the matter of that stripper. Levi hoped against hope that he hadn’t spent it yet, that he might still have the lucky hundred tucked away somewhere. Maybe he’d unfolded it when he’d gotten backstage, maybe he’d read the inscription written across Benjamin’s face in fine point black Sharpie, the lines of the letters skittering wildly, the pen held in a hand weakened by sobbing and sickness and sour anguish.

“Yes, maybe,” he agreed absentmindedly, flicking off his computer monitor and gathering up his and her coffee cups to soak in the sink. When he came back, she was waiting for him by the door, her hands stuffed into the pockets of her coat.

The distance between what was and what could be had never felt wider, and Levi hurried to pack his stuff away into his messenger bag. He feared waiting, her hand on the doorknob, going, going, gone, and pencils and notebooks were tossed in haphazardly, the owner hoping against hope that opportunity would take a fancy to him.

* * *

 

Opportunity finds its target in the subtlest of ways, and Levi found himself a few hours later with a hand on the small of Petra’s back, ushering her through the pulsating crowd inside the nightclub to the open bar. The dress she had changed into was cut into diamonds along her back, tantalizing glimpses of creamy flesh, and Levi wanted.

“Look, he’s here!” she shouted to him, sloshing an icy cold splash of gin and tonic over his bare hand as she returned from the bar. He turned to look, following the direction of her hand. The man from last Friday was back again. Fishnets this time, tantalizing cut diamonds of golden skin, all but spilling out of the fitted boxer briefs he was wearing. His skin gleamed under the stage lights, long fingers wrapped around the silver pole set in the middle of the platform, pursing his lips in equal parts disdain and amusement as he ground up languidly against the metal in time with the bass setting up camp at the base of Levi’s skull. His mouth went dry, and, fingers loose around Petra’s wrist, he shoved his way through the crowd, fighting his way to the foot of the stage.

From this angle, he had to strain to look at the stripper’s face, and Petra clutched at his arm, more gin and tonic bracingly cold against his skin, as she rocked back on her heels to look up at the stage.

On another turn, hips swaying hypnotically, Levi raised his hand, one of his business cards – Levi Ackerman, Data Coordinator – folded between the soft green of a five dollar bill. He’d checked the denomination beforehand. Like clockwork, the stripper leaned forward, one hand still wrapped around the pole, the other reaching out for the bill he held out.

Fingertips brushed. Petra’s fingers clamped into his arm, trying to keep her balance as the crowd surged forward with the next wave of music. Eyes met, electric blue against grey, a vague spark of recognition, Levi hoped, as the bill was swept away from his hand and contact was broken once again. He turned to look at Petra, amber against grey, green on grey with the man over her shoulder, who had a hand on the small of her back. Possessive. Proprietary.

She was mouthing something at him, words lost in the pounding bass of the club, and the clutch of her fingers loosened, going, going, gone, lost as she was swept into the tide.


	5. Chapter 5

It was the exact middle of the workweek, two o’clock on a Wednesday, to be precise, when the corded telephone on the corner of Levi’s desk chattered its shrill ring through the office. He picked it up absentmindedly – “Hello, this is Levi Ackerman, Data Coordinator of Rose Hills Mass Media, Western Division, how can I help you?” – rattling off his full title with the overly practiced ease of one who’s tried it out in front of the mirror many times before. Petra looked up from whatever spreadsheets she was working on, gave him a small smile, and Levi felt his traitorous heart skip a beat or three. Her lipstick was flaking and feathering at the corners; she hadn’t reapplied a fresh coat after lunch, and Levi had been lost in abject admiration of the swell of her lower lip wrapped around the bowl of her soup spoon, had ached to touch and to kiss and to pencil his name all over the neat little squares of Petra’s personal planner. He wanted to scribble his name all over her life the same way she’d done to him, inscriptions in indelible ink imprinted on the thin pages of his eyelids; he wanted what he couldn’t have, and longed for forbidden intoxication that her distracted love would bring.

“Hello, this is Erwin Smith. Associate attorney at Harvey, Kettering, and Mudd, Esquire.” The man’s voice on the other end of the telephone wires was smooth and clipped, polished, all neat crisp syllables that rolled elegantly off the tip of his tongue in exactly the way one with perfect control over his thoughts might sound. Levi swallowed nervously, tapping a ballpoint pen a sharp tattoo against a pad of Post-its as his mind frantically scrambled to think of all the possible reasons why an associate attorney at a law firm might need to contact him.

Harvey, Kettering, and Mudd, Esq., were well known throughout the Bay Area, a massive law firm with branches in virtually every department of litigation. Almost every contract in northern California passed through the hands of someone at HKM, and Levi tapped nervously on his Post-it pad, wondering if perhaps something sketchy had been found in RHMM’s hiring contracts and employment clauses. Perhaps they were being sued? Oh, God. His heart skipped another beat or three even while he thought bitterly that perhaps it would be a fitting end to an equally depressing era of his career and love life.

When the silence continued, growing thick across the line until Levi felt sure he would snap from anxiety, Erwin cleared his throat and spoke again. “I believe we have some matters to discuss?” His voice tilted up at the end, and Levi paused for a good ten seconds before realizing the question had been angled towards him.

“We do?” he asked, nervously, all too aware of the weight of Petra’s amber eyes laid curious over the crown of his head. “If you’ll forgive me, I don’t seem to recall –“

“That’s quite all right.” Erwin’s smooth voice cut him off before he could stutter out an apology for his forgetfulness. “I’ll have my secretary set up an appointment with you to discuss your interregional contracts.” Interregional contracts? No, this was worse than he’d possibly thought, and Levi’s heart set up a frantic staccato in his chest. As Data Coordinator of the Western Region, he’d take full brunt of the responsibilities associated with the interregional contracts, and nightmare flashes of a bleak future beat themselves into existence before his eyes. Packing up the contents of his desk under Petra’s watchful eyes, every item slotted into place in a cardboard carton, every breath and every thought and every step carrying him farther and farther away from her and the memories of her apartment, which were already starting to fade away like water slipping through cupped palms.

After stuttering his way through what he was sure was a garbled agreement, Levi slotted the receiver back into the cradle and looked across the desk at Petra. She was examining the chips in her nail polish, and a flare of irrational anger sparked in the pit of Levi’s heart, anger at her shallowness and jealousy that he was not the center of her attentions, before he closed his eyes, took a deep steadying breath, and clicked on the email that had popped up in his inbox from the office of Erwin Smith, inviting him to pop around to the legal firm that Friday at three. He accepted the invitation with a decisive click, and noticed with a soft twinge of despair that Petra had already turned away from him, all interest gone.

* * *

 

Levi pushed his way through the revolving door to Harvey, Kettering, and Mudd, Esquire, a few days later, eyes widening as he looked around the lobby of the building the legal firm was situated in. The lobby floor was tiled out in black and white checked marble so glossy that he could see his reflection in it, and he ran a nervous hand through his hair to flatten down the errant strands that had flown up during his brisk nine block walk over. The receptionist sitting behind the tall granite counter at the back of the lobby looked up at him over the metal rims of her glasses, her lips pursed as she looked him over and found him lacking.

“I have an appointment for three?” Levi informed her as he approached her desk. “With Erwin Smith? About interregional contracts?” His voice was doing that thing it did when he got nervous, tilting up at the ends to make everything a question, and he pinched at his thigh through the denim of his jeans to punish himself for his insecurities. “My name’s Levi Ackerman? A-C-K-E-R-M-A-N?”

The receptionist frowned at him, the crimson slash of her lipstick tilting downward as she tapped away at her keyboard with long manicured fingernails that reminded Levi too much of Petra’s chipped nail polish, and he turned his eyes away to examine the gold-lacquered plaques hanging behind the receptionist’s desk, listing the names of who he assumed were HKM’s partners and associate attorneys. Erwin Smith, a plaque in the third column, second from the bottom, read, and a jolt of fear and dread shivered its way up his spine as he thought about what the man would tell him about his imperfections.

“Alright, then,” the receptionist said, extracting him efficiently out of the anxious froth Levi was starting to lather himself up into. “If you’ll follow me, please?” She stood up, towering over him in her heels, and Levi swallowed nervously as she clicked across the marble floor to the bank of elevators in a recessed alcove off the lobby. She swiped her badge on a scanner embedded in the wall, and two silver doors slid open with a whisper. Motioning Levi in, she leaned into the elevator, pressing the “23” button with a decisive tap, and with a monotonous “Have a good day, sir,” the doors slid closed.

* * *

 

The elevator opened into a luxurious office painted in soft shades of blue and grey that reminded Levi of the sea at storm. Another receptionist sat behind a granite desk, tapping away at her monitor, but her eyes crinkled into a smile when she looked up to find Levi standing uncertainly by the potted bamboo plant next to the elevator, and she motioned him forward.

“Levi, is it?” she asked, her voice warm and buttery, and Levi felt himself starting to relax for the first time that day. “Mr. Smith’s three o’clock?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” he said, smiling with relief.

“Alright, then, why don’t you have a seat over there?” She motioned to a set of squashy chocolate armchairs. “Can I get you anything while you wait? Tea? Coffee?”

“Coffee would be fantastic,” Levi replied. With a nod, she stood up, making her way to a small kitchenette at the back of the office, and Levi noticed with a soft, tender fondness that she was barefoot, and the backs of her stockings had runs in them. She padded back to him a few moments later, bearing a tray with a plate of chocolate digestives and a china cup of coffee. He sat down in a squashy armchair, swirling cream from a silver pitcher into his coffee and watching the darkness spill into milky beige; it warmed him up from the inside out, the sweetness of a chocolate biscuit on his tongue as he looked around the office, admiring the view that the wall of glass windows in front of the armchair afforded him. The sun hadn’t quite managed to burn through the layer of clouds blown in overnight, and the city was laid out in front of him, shaded in tones of grey. It was a perfect day for staying inside in overly large sweaters, reading through a mystery novel with a mug of hot chocolate; it was cuddle weather, and Levi sorely wished for a time in the near future where he and Petra could lie tangled on the couch, watching pay-per-view movies on television that flickered out with every spattering crash of thunder overhead. Her voice would call his name in softly spoken, cultured syllables, and he’d never tire of hearing it, just as long as he could press kisses to the hollow of her throat and nibble love all into her skin.

“Levi?” The receptionist was calling to him, and he set down his half-drunk cup of coffee with a clink on its matching saucer. “Mr. Smith is ready to see you now.”

The anxiety Levi had spent so long trying to suppress flared back up again, and he felt his palms grow itchy, his heart starting a violent staccato in the confines of his rib cage as he walked towards the receptionist, who was holding a heavy mahogany door open for him on the other side of the office. She gave him a comforting smile as she ushered him into the office before backing out and closing the door behind her with an unobtrusive click.

“Mr. Ackerman, I presume?” There were the neat, crisp syllables wrapped around his name, the soft cultured tones of someone with wealth, of someone who was used to getting what he wanted. Levi looked up.

A moment of disconnect. Familiarity flushed through him, a growing slog of unease in the pit of his stomach as he examined the man sitting across the table.

Erwin was wearing a neatly buttoned slate grey Brooks Brothers blazer, the collar of his white dress shirt tightly starched and crisply folded around the slim column of his neck. A length of silky viridian was tied into a Windsor knot resting at the hollow of his throat, and he was twirling a fountain pen around in his fingers, one that Levi was sure would put him out about three months of his salary. Erwin’s bright blue eyes scrutinized him across the mahogany desk, and Levi tried to reconcile the man sitting across the table from him with the man he’d seen at Babe18.

“This isn’t about the interregional contracts, is it?” he blurted out after a moment of tense silence during which his nails dug crimson crescents into his palms.

Erwin smiled, the corner of his mouth quirking up just the slightest, and Levi was horrified to find himself yearning toward the other man, the viscerality of physical attraction rampaging its way through his veins. “No, it’s not,” he replied after a moment. “Quite astute of you. I’ll have to admit I was surprised. It’s not every day that I get business cards slipped in with five dollar bills.”

Levi gawped at him. No. It was impossible. There had to be an explanation for this: Erwin had a twin, Levi had been dreaming the whole encounter, Levi had been far too drunk to remember correctly, but Erwin was sitting here, in front of him in a luxurious-looking leather armchair, admitting to everything.

“Now, then,” Erwin said after a long moment during which Levi tried to wrap his mind around the sheer impossibility of the situation. “You’ve piqued my interest, Mr. Ackerman, Data Coordinator of Rose Hills Mass Media, Western Division. Despite my legal expertise, I’m not so well-versed in clairvoyance, so any light you have to shed on this matter would be much appreciated.”

“Do you – does your – do they know you go to Babe18?” Levi blurted out, horribly and utterly confused as he gestured vaguely behind him, in the direction of the receptionist and the rest of the building.

“I – ah – prefer to keep my personal and professional lives separate,” Erwin informed him, tapping the end of the fountain pen against a yellow legal pad. “But why don’t we keep the questions to my side of the table, if you don’t mind? I assume you’re seeking me out for a reason.” Catching Levi’s utterly shocked look, he grinned. “And before you ask, no, I don’t do birthday parties or anything of the sort. I do have an image to maintain, after all.”

Levi felt like he was drowning, shock pulsing through his blood. “I, um,” he stuttered, “I don’t know if you remember, but a few weeks ago, I gave you that hundred dollar bill?” Shit. His voice was doing that thing again. He pinched roughly at his thigh under the desk, where Erwin wouldn’t see, forcing stability into his voice. “I’d like it back.”

Erwin arched a bushy eyebrow at him. “Ah. I thought you looked familiar,” he replied smoothly, leaning over to slide open a drawer with a soft whoosh. “Luckily for you” – he straightened up again, plucking a softly wrinkled bill out of the drawer – “I’ve kept it. You should probably treat your personal things more carefully.”

Flushing, Levi reached across the desk for the bill, soft creases and covered with his mother’s handwriting, but Erwin pulled away.

“Just a moment, Mr. Ackerman,” Erwin tutted. “I’m not billing you for the hour, but perhaps another form of compensation might be well deserved, don’t you think?”

Levi stared at him blankly. “Another form of compensation?” he asked weakly, the wheels spinning frantically in his brain with audible creaks as he tried to think of what else he could possibly offer Erwin.

“Dinner,” Erwin replied, as though he asked clients to meals all the time. “Dinner, and your sworn silence on the matter of my other activities. What do you say?”

Levi was quite sure that, even if he went around all of San Francisco with Erwin’s face on a sandwich board proclaiming that the man was a stripper, no one would believe him. He agreed, uncertain, unsure, and took the hundred back from Erwin, slotting it neatly into his wallet and securing it in between his other bills and cards with a firm pat.

Dinner was a small price to pay for his last small memories of his mother.


	6. Chapter 6

 The email in Levi’s inbox had the word ‘Dinner’ in the subject line, and was flagged as ‘important mainly because of the people in the conversation,’ according to Gmail’s servers who had apparently taken it upon themselves to designate Erwin already as a Very Important Person. It had probably been his email address, [esmith@hkm.com](mailto:esmith@hkm.com); clearly even Google knew that the people who bore such a domain in their address were not to be trifled with.

With fingers leaden with trepidation, Levi clicked it open. “7:00 tonight, Quince.” His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. Quince? He had only ever heard rave reviews about the French-Italian restaurant, had only heard whispered rumors about the price of the dishes. He Googled it now, clicking through the menu tab. None of the food items had prices next to them, but he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that the prices wee astronomical. Was Erwin going to make him pay for dinner? The prospect of that terrified Levi, and Petra, who was passing behind him from her return trip to the coffeemaker in the kitchenette, voiced his opinions for him.

“You’re going to Quince?” she gasped, her eyes fixated on his desktop monitor. The low level of chatter that usually permeated the atmosphere of Rose Hills Mass Media died down, and Levi flushed under the burn of dozens of inquisitive eyes, all of his coworkers wondering how their lowly Data Coordinator could possibly afford to go to one of the most expensive restaurants in San Francisco.

“Who’s the lucky girl?” Petra asked teasingly as she settled back behind her desk and pulled her keyboard back towards her, clicking away, most likely to message whoever she was going out with tonight. Levi had tried to ignore the instant messaging text window he’d seen on her monitor as he’d walked past to drop off some files and surveys on a coworker’s desk, but the white words on the green background had burnt themselves into his eyes, filled with x’s and o’s and heart emojis. It sickened him to no end that a woman of Petra’s age should still be using such juvenile, such childish things to express something as serious as love, no matter how impermanent. The chatter had started up again, a low buzz that grew and swelled as their coworkers lost interest. “Or boy?”

The chatter stopped abruptly again, ears pricked. Levi pinched his lips together, glaring around the office. Their coworkers’ gazes all skittered away from his when they clashed, and for a few moments the only sounds were those vague office ones of the fax machine running down the hall, the chattering of manicured fingernails on keyboards, and the innocent burbling of the water cooler in the corner. Waiting. Watching. Something of interest, and Levi had no desire to fuel the gossip mill further.

“They’re no one,” Levi said, careful to keep his expression flat and his voice flatter, ignoring the way Petra wheedled with her eyes for more information. It certainly wasn’t any of her business who he was going to Quince with, he thought haughtily to himself, she’d certainly never taken any interest in his evening plans before, and Erwin really wasn’t anyone special. Not yet, at least. Levi was just paying his dues.

 

* * *

 

The clock ticked to five and Levi was out of his seat like a horse from the starting gate, not even waiting for Petra to finish slotting her multitude of chapsticks into the slots in her purse lining like he customarily would have. She looked almost hurt, her mouth a pouty O of surprise and Levi smiled to himself almost savagely as he rode down in the elevator, watching the neon orange numbers flicker by on the overhead display. How fun it was, to be the one with exciting new plans and new people! The man in the warped reflection of the elevator carriage grinned back at him, thousands of people in one, and Levi prided himself on his newfound independence. He didn’t need Petra, he’d made do without her before and he would certainly be able to make do without her again.

It was just a matter of weaning himself off the fake comfort he’d allowed himself to solicit from her, making mountains from molehills and believing every little smile and every little glance was for him and him alone. The doors slid open neatly with a small chime, and Levi’s heels clicked on the tile floor of the lobby, on the cracked pavement of the sidewalk as he angled himself towards home to get ready.

* * *

 

It took him ages, unearthing dusty old suit jackets and frantically ironing the creases out of matching slacks. Quince was a fancy place, four dollar signs on Yelp, and he hastily ran a wet comb through his dark hair, parting it slick to the side. Levi examined himself critically in the mirror as he tugged his old Calvin Klein jacket around himself. Not too shabby, he thought to himself, though he looked vaguely uneasy in the fine clothes. The cuckoo clock in his neighbor’s apartment chimed six, a shrilling bird cheeping, and Levi tucked his wallet, keys, and phone in the pockets of his slacks before hurrying out the door.

 

* * *

 

His unease rose to terrifying proportions as he pulled open the heavy gilt-framed doors into Quince, his reflection shimmering into a slurry of shadow in the thick glass panels. The décor of even the waiting area looked like it could belong in the sitting room of a fancy house over in Cow Hollow, and Levi swallowed roughly as he headed towards the hostess, who was eyeing him with what looked like more than a vague hint of distaste.

He didn’t fit in here, counting his dollars and cents sparingly, and she knew it, knew that he knew it, also.

“I have a –“ Levi faltered. He surely didn’t have a reservation. “- a dinner with Erwin Smith?” His voice tilted upwards at the end, questioning, and he hated himself for the uncertainty he’d allowed to sneak into his syllables, undermining his confidence and his already much-diminished sense of authority.

“Hmm.” The hostess pinched her lips together, a thin slash of crimson across her face, and she tapped at the keyboard in front of her, looking up the reservation list. Erwin Smith, 2, it clearly said in 14 point Optima on the screen, and Levi’s hands itched to point out the lightly blue colored slot, itched to show her that he belonged, no matter how temporarily. “Please wait a moment…sir.” The last word was delivered almost mockingly, and anger rose a bitter gorge inside him. “May I ask who he should be expecting?”

“Levi Ackerman,” he gritted out, bitterness settling in between his teeth like so many shards of broken glass.

With another querulous look at him, the hostess turned to weave her way into the dining room. As she pulled open the heavy glass doors that separated the lobby from the diners, bursts of laughter and the quiet hum of chatter floated out to tickle at Levi’s ears; his eyes were dazzled with the soft glow of what seemed to be thousands of chandeliers, dripping with jeweled crystals as they dangled from the ceiling to scatter pinpricks of soft light over the diners. Just as soon as it had come, the vision was gone, the door swinging shut behind her and her bobbing chestnut ponytail, leaving Levi in silence.

He absentmindedly traced a grain in the cherry wood of the hostess’s desk, and, equally as absentmindedly, his thoughts drifted back to Petra and to what she might be doing. She was probably out clubbing, finding love in the darker corners of the city, or maybe she was sitting in a restaurant, all but glowing in the fluorescent lights of some diner, laughing and making tonight’s man feel like he was the most important one in the world. Levi’s hand curled into a fist on the desk.

No, he whispered to himself, trying to drive Petra out of his mind with thoughts of her myriad imperfections. He didn’t need someone like her, didn’t want someone like her, and in the short time it took the hostess to come back from the dining room, Levi had all but convinced himself he despised Petra.

“If you’ll follow me.” There was no apology for her previous behavior, and Levi glared at her back as he followed her through the swinging doors into the glory of the dining room. She led him past men in dark suits that nipped in at the shoulders and waists, past women who looked like they’d all but poured themselves into their cocktail dresses, soft pastels and bright daring hues a whirling kaleidoscope of color all around him. The beauty was lost on Levi, still simmering in his anger, which only started to dissipate the moment she’d stepped aside so he could settle himself in a padded plush chair across from Erwin.

“Glad to see you could make it,” Erwin said with a smile, and Levi had to grudgingly admit that the place suited him. Decadent opulence on all sides, and Erwin looked as though he’d been born to it, born to expect and taught to receive, his wholesome looks fit right in. Blonde hair swept to the side, a loose errant strand curling over his forehead, brilliant blue eyes to match the bright tie he was wearing knotted at his neck over the wings of a crisp dress shirt and a suit jacket. Like this, Levi could hardly believe that this man and the man he’d seen in Babe18 were one and the same.

“What’s this about, then?” he asked, eyeing the ivory tablecloth and sparkling cutlery with no small amount of confusion. Where were the menus? Was he expected to have memorized it before he’d come? “I’m sure you must have some ulterior motive for this whole” – he gestured vaguely over the table, his reflection multiplied twice, thrice, ten times in the glistening glasses and gleaming dishes – “this whole thing.”

“A bit direct, aren’t you?” Erwin asked, grinning, a brilliant slick of white teeth, and Levi felt a lurch in his stomach as he matched the smile Erwin was giving him now to the smile he’d given him in through the smoke-scented air in the club. “The sommelier hasn’t even come yet, and you’re already champing at the bit. You’d make a formidable lawyer, has anyone ever told you that? Opposing counsel wouldn’t be able to get a word in.”

Levi glowered, but the anger had all but dissolved already, and he was left with the sour taste of his uneasiness. He was aware of several glances roving around the room and landing on their table, and heat laddered up his spine to settle in a heavy blush on the back of his neck. He prayed Erwin couldn’t see, or, if he did, wouldn’t mention it.

As promised, the sommelier glided over, pouring smooth words across the table that Levi was unfamiliar with, and he was somewhat gratified when Erwin ordered a bottle for both of them. Why weren’t there any prices? Levi wondered as the sommelier uncorked a deep emerald bottle and poured a fountain of rubies into their glasses. He only had a few twenties in his wallet, and he was beginning to think this wouldn’t be one of those meals that he could fit in on his already stretched credit card.

Erwin took a sip of the wine, mulling it about in his mouth, his lips pursing sensually, and Levi found himself staring far too long at the dip and swoop of the Cupid’s bow. Beauty and grace flared through Erwin with every movement, and Levi was beginning to think these qualities were what had entranced him the most at Babe18.

Erwin was controlled perfection. Levi could put him on a pedestal and he wouldn’t fall. He wouldn’t even wobble. Levi took a sip of wine, and though he’d never been much for wine, he found himself rolling the flavor about in his mouth, fruity, nutty, robust undertones just like Erwin had said.

“But, as most opposing counsels tend to be, you have an uncanny sense of insight,” Erwin continued, after the waiter had come and gone with their orders. He’d had ordered again for the both of them, and Levi had been far too entranced with Erwin’s fingers, long and slender, wrapped around the stem of the wine glass. “Or perhaps just a rather developed common sense. Everyone has an ulterior motive, Levi, and you’d be wise not to forget that.”

He rolled Levi’s name on his tongue, and Levi felt a sickening tingle creep up his spine, draping warm fingers across every vertebra. Erwin’s eyes were focused on him, laserlike, and Levi gloried in his undivided attention even as he strained to shy away from being the subject of such close scrutiny.

“I guess you could say you’ve caught my eye,” Erwin continued conversationally. Though his voice was soft, his syllables cut through the soft fog of chatter in the dining room, laying themselves comfortingly in Levi’s ears. “Someone who carries around hundreds with messages scrawled on them is probably someone worth knowing, or, at the very least, someone worth keeping an eye on. Especially if that said someone gives these hundreds away.”

“Did you read it?” Levi demanded, narrowing his eyes at Erwin.

“No,” Erwin replied easily, brushing aside Levi’s anger. “It’s a message for you alone, I’m assuming, or you wouldn’t have tried to track me down to ask for it back. Unless perhaps you’re just in particularly low straits. Which” – his eyes roved over Levi again, taking in the slicked back hair which was starting to rebel against Levi’s hard work, the dress shirt that was still slightly wrinkled, the seasons-old Calvin Klein suit jacket – “I’m in no position to ask, really.”

The waiter returned, setting down platters of food in front of them. Levi prodded at the mound of flaky white fish in front of him, before forking in a mouthful. Erwin watched him with mild amusement as he neatly shook out his napkin and settled it across his lap before cutting a bite of the roast chicken the waiter had laid out in front of him.

“You’re right about that,” Levi groused, swallowing. It was really quite good, whatever it was, but he wasn’t looking forward to taking a look at the bill. The fish was light and delicate on his tongue, dancing with flavors that blossomed with every passing moment, citrus one instant, peppery spice the next. “It’s really none of your business.”

A moment of silence, during which Levi attacked his fish more vigorously.

“I’d like it to be my business.”

Levi’s fork clattered against the edge of his china plate as he lost his grip on the freshly polished silver. He looked up at Erwin, shock and disbelief coursing parallel paths through his mind.

Once he’d sufficiently regained his composure, with the help of several large swallows of wine, Levi asked, with more than a hint of suspicion, “And why’s that, Mr. Smith?”

Erwin shrugged, cutting another piece of chicken, tender flesh and crackling skin, and spearing it on his fork. “Like I said, Mr. Ackerman.” He lifted the fork daintily, holding it out across the table to Levi. “Someone like you is probably worth knowing, or, at the very least, keeping an eye on.”

It had been ages since Levi had been paid attention to in such a manner, since someone had shoved aside obligations and penciled him into their personal planner into an arrangement that suddenly went from two hours to the foreseeable future. It couldn’t hurt, surely, Levi thought to himself, and it would probably help take his mind off of Petra. It wasn’t healthy, obsessing about her all the time, and with that thought securely at the forefront of his mind, Levi opened his mouth to take the bite of chicken off Erwin’s fork.


	7. Chapter 7

Levi went home that night, his stomach full of good wine and fish and chocolate mousse that melted right off the spoon into his mouth. When the bill had come, closed in a smooth leather folder, Erwin had taken it from the waiter and had tucked a black credit card into the slot without giving the total a second glance; Levi hadn’t even had a chance to pretend to make a weak grab for the check. Erwin had tucked him into a black cab, handing the driver a fold of twenties and telling him to take Levi wherever he needed to go. His eyes had sparked electric blue as he looked down at Levi, the low orange glow of the gas lamps in the streets threading fingers through his golden hair, and told Levi he sincerely hoped to see him soon. His gaze had pierced through Levi’s soul, warmed him from the inside out with the undivided attention Erwin layered on him.

He had looked at Levi as though he really saw him, had eyes only for him, wanted to know everything about him. It was exhilarating, it was frightening, but Levi couldn’t stop himself from exulting in the reflection of himself that he saw within the oceanic depths of Erwin’s gaze.

Levi held onto the memory of Erwin’s eyes as the driver took him home, the dark car wending through the night. The glowing lights of downtown faded in the distance behind them, slipping Levi back neatly into his own life. The taillights of the black cab left a crimson slipstream streaking across Levi’s vision, and he strained his eyes to see until the car turned a corner and it was lost to him. Levi sighed, the crisp wind ruffling his hair, slipping chilly fingers beneath the collar of his shirt and pushing him up the stairs of his apartment building. He fumbled with the glowing green display of the number pad locking in the main door and, after it buzzed open with a resonant shrill, Levi disappeared up the creaking stairs.

* * *

 

Erwin sighed as he shouldered open the white wooden door to his house in the Haight-Ashbury District. The silhouettes of his furniture rose up from the darkness like so many burdened ghosts, and Erwin sank down into a slate-grey Eames chair that creaked easily as it accepted his weight, becoming part of the shadows himself once more. His fingertips were starting to twitch, antsy, anxiety spilling through his bloodstream in ripples and waves.

He held off for a little longer, contemplating the dinner he’d just had with Levi. The other man had blossomed under Erwin’s attention, and, aided with the good food and good wine, had started to bloom rosy petals. Almost pretty. Erwin thought that perhaps, given enough time and effort, Levi could truly become gorgeous.

There was a sort of hidden anger that sparked brilliantly in Levi’s grey eyes, lit up with the gleam from the glistening chandeliers, and Erwin wondered vaguely, fingers drumming contemplatively on the arm of the chair, what exactly Levi was so furious about.

Ah, well. Erwin sighed as he hauled himself out of his chair and headed towards his bedroom, cool, crisp sheets, ready to fall onto the mattress and laze his way into oblivion. He hoped he’d have all the time in the world to figure out what lay behind the screen of Levi’s eyes.

* * *

 

Levi spent the rest of the weekend lounging around in his apartment and reliving the dazzling opulence that Erwin had shown him. Already the memories were starting to fade, trickling through his fingers like water, and he could barely conjure up the glistening glow of the multi-tiered chandeliers overhead, the warm weight of the silverware in his hands, the delicate taste of the fish and the chicken he had taken off Erwin’s fork.

He busied himself, filling the empty hours with cleaning his already neat apartment, wandering back and forth between the miniscule washer and dryer he had squirreled away in the hall closet and his bedroom. He folded the clothes into their respective drawers, fluffed out the sheets and pillowcases so they would smell like the soft scent of sunshine as he stretched them out tight and taut across the mattress.

Normally, Levi would have considered that the extent of his weekend, accomplishing all he’d wanted to do, but suddenly his apartment seemed far too empty, far too lonely, and Saturday night found him bursting out of the confines of his cracker box life, the thin soles of his rubber trainers pounding against the pavement in the nearby park as he ran along the jogging trails and tried to parse out the disappointment that had suddenly invaded its way infectious into his life.

He had always been content before with being a spectator, with watching from the sidelines, living vicariously through the characters in books and movies, but it was suddenly no longer enough. He had always been content with loving from a distance, listening wistfully to Petra’s accounts of love and wondering why he couldn’t ever seem to find the right words to make her turn her eyes towards him. Just once. Just for a moment, for a breath that would last a lifetime.

His breath raced ragged in his lungs, the taste of iron settling heavy on his tongue, and Levi’s pounding footsteps carried him to the dark glassy surface of a pond, glossy in the darkness. Light rippled across its surface from the nearby orange glow of streetlamps, and couples crossed the red lacquered Japanese bridge, hand in hand, their joined reflections shimmering distortions in the water. Hands on his knees, catching his breath, Levi stared, studied.

Love came and went, passing him by in so many pairs, in so many combinations, in so many colors, and, with bitter resentment rising in his throat, Levi turned his footsteps toward home.

* * *

 

Once he was safely ensconced back in the minimalist familiarity of his apartment, Levi tugged off his sweaty clothes, depositing them in the wicker hamper in his bathroom. He examined himself critically in his bathroom mirror; the fluorescence was not kind to his skin tone, made him look sallow and pale, unhealthy. His cheekbones were too sharp, his mouth sported a permanent downturn, and if he stretched in just the right way, he could see the swoops of his collarbones and the ridges of his ribcage straining against his skin, bone searching for an escape, uncaring if it spilled ugly crimson all across the freshly washed tiles.

He wasn’t attractive, not like the models in the magazines or the actors in the movies. Levi couldn’t look at himself for too long without finding something new to criticize, without finding more affirmation that, despite his best intentions and attempts, he was always and always would be insufferably normal. Devoid of excitement, devoid of spontaneity, a bird in a gilded cage who just ached to stretch its wings and fly far, far away.

He clicked off the light in the bathroom and stepped into the shower stall, the water ice cold and scalding hot by turns as he showered in the dark, washing his regrets down the drain with the shampoo suds that burned at his eyes. It was no wonder Petra didn’t love him, he whispered to himself under the shower’s punishing spray, soap along his limbs as he scrubbed himself raw. It was no wonder he’d never caught her eye. He had nothing to offer her that she couldn’t find elsewhere, and he rewarded his ignorance with a few particularly harsh scrubs that had his skin stinging beneath his touch.

Stepping out of the shower, Levi wrapped himself in a fluffy towel, reveling in the soft touch of warmth that it still carried from the dryer. Wet footsteps padded out of the tiled bathroom into the soft, rosy light of his bedroom, where he let the towel fall in a coil of light green to puddle silky on the floor.

The floor length mirror in his bedroom was kinder to him than the mirrors in his bathroom had been, and Levi spent a few long moments looking over himself and how the rosy light gathered in the hollows of his collarbones and shaded his lips with rouge. Highlights beneath his cheekbones, light gleaming off damp strands of hair that he slicked back with an impatient hand. The glow made him look fuller, molded softly out of clay instead of unforgiving marble.

Levi examined himself like Erwin had done, lowered lashes and pursed lips, and found that he looked almost beautiful, almost like someone worth knowing.


	8. Chapter 8

Monday came, and the tables turned in the tide, a vicious swelling that had Levi grinning savagely to himself in the men’s bathroom at the offices of Rose Hills Mass Media. The man looking back at him in the reflection in the glass was unfamiliar, the bright spark of newfound confidence twinkling in his eyes, and not even the fluorescence of the overhead lights could take away the beauty that he’d managed to find for himself.

Yes, he could say to himself waking up in the morning, patting at his cheeks and chasing the burn of the aftershave with a clean towel, he was someone worth knowing. Someone like Erwin Smith, someone important, had taken notice and had wanted to know him better! He was worthy, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he felt smug in knowing that one day he would be deemed interesting, that one day the right person would come along to sweep him off his feet and listen to what he had to say with undivided attention. That day had come, with a man like Janus, two faced and exulting in every moment of his deceit, all prim and proper behind his desk and nothing like the man Levi had first met who whispered of sex and illicit activities through plush lips swollen rosy like cherries.

With confidence came cockiness, and Levi was eager for Petra to come in to the office, was eager to show her that she wasn’t the only one who could catch people’s eye. He certainly didn’t need her to reaffirm his self-worth, but as the seconds ticked by into minutes into hours, Levi’s grand new sense of esteem slowly wilted like the neglected plants in the corners of the office that some poor soul changed out every month or so with new ones. The vibrant green leaves of the fresh ferns would bring some much needed color and optimism into the office for the few weeks it took for them to wilt and brown, at which point people would studiously avoid looking at them until they were mysteriously replaced like clockwork on the first day of each month. It was quite an apt metaphor for his life, Levi thought, and he had never related to the plants quite as much as he was doing today, waiting for Petra to come in.

An email pinged into his inbox. Sender: Petra Ral. Subject: Out sick. The body of the message was some clipped sentence or two about how she’d come down with the flu, something really contagious, she was very sorry but she wouldn’t be able to make it in today and she looked forward to seeing him later this week. Levi fumed in irritation as he firmly clicked the Delete button, sending her message into his trash can. His good mood had all but evaporated, and he spent the rest of the workday distractedly compiling spreadsheets and trying not to think about her glaring absence on the other side of the desk.

He didn’t need her, he tried to tell himself, taking deep breaths and getting up every hour to make himself a cup of coffee, to walk around, to stretch his legs, anything to get away from her empty desk. He didn’t need her, not one whit. He didn’t need anyone! Triumphant that he had come to this conclusion all by himself, Levi would return to his desk, sit down, and pull his keyboard towards him, and would manage to type through several more columns before he began to wonder why it was so silent without her.

He turned, a cycle of doubt and recrimination, and slowly but surely, his hopes that his new self-confidence would be attractive to her began to fade.

* * *

 

His phone pinged after lunch, the middle of a dreary workday, and Levi shook himself out of his stupor as he reached into the pocket of his slacks to tug out his mobile. He had been preoccupying himself with staring out the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that ran along the far end of the office; it had started to rain, the first one in a long while, and it turned the world into a slurry of grey.

“Hello, Levi.” The phone number was unknown. Levi narrowed his eyes at the screen, his thumb hovering hesitantly over the ‘Block Number’ button.

A moment later, another text popped up. “This is Erwin Smith.”

He relaxed, subtle, slow, the tension leaching out of him as he swiftly added the number to his contacts list and tapped out a reply. “Hey.” Too informal? Too informal. He frowned and erased it. “Hello.”

“Are you busy later this evening?”

Levi paused for a moment. He already knew his calendar for outside of work activities was depressingly blank, but it really wouldn’t do to appear too eager. Levi had had enough of being the first to love, had had enough of being the one who was left wanting, and he made a promise to himself that, in whatever sort of arrangement this was, he would not be the one to be giving more than his fair half. Ten. Nine. Eight. He counted down the seconds to make it appear as though he were busy checking his packed schedule, seeing if he might be able to slip Erwin in around the grocery shopping and bookshop-browsing he had slated for today.

Seven. Six. Five. His fridge was bare, the cupboards dusty from disuse. And he was running out of laundry detergent. He scribbled absentmindedly on a Post It.

Four. Three. Two. He supposed the food could wait for another day.

One.

“No.”

A few anxious moments ran by without response. Where could Erwin have gone? Levi wondered to himself, his eyes riveted to the screen. He had just been texting him a moment before, surely he couldn’t have gone off to another activity already? Undivided attention shattered into fragments, and irritation tinged with anger laced into Levi’s thoughts like spider webs.

An ellipsis appeared, and he sighed with relief. Not forgotten, after all.

“Do you want to get coffee after work?”

This time, Levi’s response was almost instantaneous. Definite. “Yes.”

Erwin rattled back the name of a coffee shop and an address, and Levi replied eagerly that he looked forward to it. He set his phone face down on his desk, and pulled his keyboard back towards him again, but couldn’t keep from checking every few minutes to see if he’d received any further texts from Erwin. He had to admit he was disappointed in Erwin’s silence.

* * *

 

The coffee shop Erwin had mentioned was one that Levi frequently passed by on his way to work from his apartment, a little cozy looking place on the corner of Seventh and Metro called Bluish. The people inside always looked so comfortable, folded up in squashy armchairs and sipping large mugs of steaming drinks, apple-cheeked and bright-eyed as they paged through their novels, tattered with the signs of having been read through several times.

Erwin was already inside when Levi got there, tucked into a rich chocolate brown armchair in the corner by the window, and Levi hurried over, his messenger bag banging painfully against his thigh and an apology for keeping Erwin waiting on the tip of his tongue.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, sitting down in a burgundy recliner across from Erwin. The other man’s eyes were strangely bright, a liquid ocean that Levi felt himself drowning in even as the waitress came by and asked him what he would like to drink. He barely glanced down at the glossy menu, ordering the first thing he saw – a Caffe Medici, whatever that was – before he turned to look Erwin in the eye again.

“No worries,” Erwin replied, spreading his hands, palms up, understanding. “Sorry for springing this on you so suddenly.”

Apology for apology. A relationship made between equals. Levi flushed at the implications of the words.

“And how was work?” Erwin continued, leaning towards Levi, steepling his fingers in front of his face, intent, attentive to what he had to say. “Did you have a good day?”

Normally, Levi would have lied, made some noncommittal answer about how his day had been fine, nothing exciting, nothing interesting. But the way Erwin was watching him, as though every syllable he uttered was of the utmost importance, had him saying, “Not really, no.”

“Oh?” Erwin arched an eyebrow at him. “And why’s that?”

“This girl I’m interested in wasn’t in the office today,” Levi said, bluntly, leaning back as the waitress returned with their orders and set them down on the low wooden table between the two recliners. “And work is boring without her.”

“Is that right?” Erwin murmured, reaching for a porcelain mug. “What do you like about her?”

“She’s pretty, she’s intelligent, she’s funny.” Levi ticked the reasons off on his fingers. “And she doesn’t have any faults.”

“Hmm.” Erwin made a contemplative noise, taking a sip of his coffee. “That’s a bold statement.”

“She doesn’t,” Levi insisted, taking a sip from his Caffe Medici, some strong, dark coffee with chocolate shavings and curls of orange zest. The flavor danced bitter across his tongue. “Or at least, none that I know of.”

They chatted for a while like this, their conversation punctuated with the jingling of the bells hanging over the café’s front door as people came and went. Erwin reached for the check when it came, easily waving off Levi’s halfhearted attempts to pay, and as he was standing in the queue for the register, the bells over the door rang again.

Levi looked up from the last dregs of his coffee.

Petra came in, tugging at the sleeve of some man with ruffled auburn hair, and there were roses in her cheeks and brightness in her eyes as he returned her gleeful smile. She was the very picture of good health, and Levi felt his stomach begin to churn.

“Ready?” Erwin asked, coming back. He could barely bring himself to nod, his glare following Petra across the café as she sat down in a bank of armchairs in front of the softly dancing fireplace.

Levi had held her up on a pedestal for so long that it was hard to see when the foundations were shaking, when the plaster base started to crack. But crack it did, time shows all, and Levi allowed Erwin to take his hand as Erwin walked him back to his apartment, and he tried to ignore the way his fingers were twitching uncontrollably with his malice.


	9. Chapter 9

Like too much of a good thing, Levi’s adoration for Petra started to wane and grow sour, spoiling, spoiled rotten even as he gloated with the newfound attention Erwin showered on him, and, in time, Levi began to wonder why he’d ever loved her at all. She had nothing to offer him, and certainly wasn’t deserving of his attentions.

He took a deep breath, stepped back to reevaluate. What had she been to him, really? His fickle heart flickered affectionate as he thought about the reasons he’d fallen in love with her, almost from the very first day he’d placed his cardboard box of belongings on the empty desk across from her at Rose Hills Mass Media.

“Hey, there!” she had chirped, bright amber eyes gleaming in the warm sunlight that danced across her cheekbones, lighting up her freckles like sun-kissed constellations. Levi had been new, new to the office and new to the city, and Petra had given him a lifeline to grasp at just when he thought he’d been about to flounder and drown beneath the weight of all this strangeness.

Yes, that had been it, he rationalized to himself. She had represented a place of safety, a calm harbor in the eye of the storm that had thrust him out into the adult world directly after graduation, swept away in the current of the recent loss of his mother and the abrupt realization that he was, for, really, the first time in his life, well and truly alone.

He loved solitude in the way that the sea loved the shore, always coming back to kiss the warm grains of socialization before quickly retreating back into vast loneliness and letting the swells of his thoughts bury him in their comforting embraces.

Petra had just been there, in the right place at the right time, and Levi couldn’t help but be swept away by the first pair of kind eyes that glanced his way. And yes, something deeply ingrained in Levi still loved her, a force of habit more than anything else, but he was beginning to realize that he loved the idea of Petra instead of the person she actually was. The person Petra was was riddled with faults, tiny flaws all but invisible to the eye until you poured water over it and saw it seeping out through all the cracks.

Her lipstick always feathered at the corners of her mouth, and she left crimson crescents along the porcelain mugs of every coffee cup she touched, the color too stark and too sharp. Tarty, almost, and Levi relished the harshness of the jabbed insult against his tongue. Her nails, too, were always painted in some flagrantly bright color that chipped off in shards and fragments over the course of the week, leaving her looking cheap, and all that made her bright and beautiful on Monday left her looking washed out and worn down on Thursday. Her beauty was ephemeral, fleeting, and as Levi began to spend more and more time with Erwin, he began to realize exactly just how much Petra differed from the image of her that he had built up.

Slowly, slowly, time rubbed at the edges of the painting Levi had slopped messy over the canvas of his heart, and the feelings yellowed, all awash in a muddle of colors as he threw oil over the tarps and struck a match. The scent of burning turpentine filled his nose with reluctance, because he still loved her, to an extent, but the love had changed, ugly and fraught with desperate nostalgia, a desire to fix something broken that had never had the chance to blossom.

No. He didn’t need Petra in his life, he didn’t need someone who valued love only in those soft initial moments where it still sparked bubbly like a freshly opened bottle of champagne that had not yet had time to fizzle out. He didn’t need her, didn’t need a liar who spoke in untruths and tried to cover her flaws with cosmetics and laughter that sprang forth easily at seemingly nothing at all. No, he didn’t need her, he thought to himself triumphantly, as he savagely deleted spam email after spam email from his inbox, his finger clicking firmly on the mouse.

And yet.

He clung to the last vestiges of his hope and love, praying that maybe he could revert back to the person he thought he’d been, the person whose skin he was comfortable living in. Before meeting Erwin, Levi had never been one to love, to reach out for a hand splay-fingered over a table and cover it with his own. He had always been passive, loving from the sidelines and regretting every moment of it.

But Erwin had given him back control, had made him feel beautiful in a mesmerizing way that Levi had quickly fallen in love with, and he began to look forward to his evenings with Erwin instead of his mornings with Petra.

This evening after work, he all but bounded out the office door without even waiting for Petra by the bank of elevators like he normally would have, pleading for scraps of her attention. Despite the guilty twinge in his conscience, watching the numbers flicker orange, counting down the floors, he couldn’t help but feel a rush of excitement.

Erwin had invited him over to his place in the Haight-Ashbury District for the first time, and Levi was sure it was an indication that he wanted to start to take the relationship behind closed doors, that he wanted to keep Levi’s attentions all to himself, that he was willing to be simply two people instead of two people together in a crowded room under watchful eyes. Levi appreciated that, and he wound his cherry red scarf tighter around his neck, his breath steaming from his mouth like so many silver thoughts, his footsteps clicking across the concrete as he headed to the address Erwin had texted him hours ago.

* * *

 

“Hey, glad you could make it,” Erwin said, smiling down at him as he swung open the white wooden door. It didn’t even creak, a sign of well-oiled hinges and gentle usage, and Levi stepped into the marbled entranceway, carefully toeing off his shoes and meeting his reflection in the glossy tile. There were roses in his cheeks and a sparkle in his eyes from the brisk walk over, his dark hair windswept across his forehead.

Beautiful.

He turned to Erwin with a smile. “Thanks for having me,” he replied, smooth, neat like the Scotch Erwin had already set out, gleaming golden and amber hues in crystal tumblers on his glass dining table, lit up with the soft glow from the overhead chandelier. A meal had already been prepared, a roast that Erwin carved slightly pink slices from as he directed Levi to sit down. He could almost see his reflection in the glossy plates and the heavy silverware, and the food melted in his mouth, the pinnacle of indulgence.

“It’s very good,” he murmured, dabbing at his lips with a cloth napkin and watching with no small sense of triumph as Erwin’s eyes followed his every motion carefully, drinking it in, savoring the delicate twitches of muscle and bone and sinew as though it might never happen again. Ephemeral, blown in through a lifetime, and Levi cherished the feeling of weightlessness he got around Erwin, so much more so now that there was no one else to see and he could rest assured that it was not just simply an act.

And yet.

He kept stealing careful glances at Erwin across the table, wondering why, how, what he could possibly want from him. The tension spindled out inside him, woven like silky strings, until he could bear it no longer.

“What do you want from me?” he asked, suddenly, abruptly, and once the words had left his mouth, he winced, wanted to reach out and snatch them back from the open air that lay between them on the table. Erwin’s knife and fork squeaked over the china plate, and he looked up at Levi with eyes that pierced through his soul.

“Want from you?” he asked, mildly, as though Levi hadn’t just burst out a rude inquiry at his dinner table. “Do you really think so little of me for that?”

Levi reddened, dropping his gaze to his food again and pushing around a few wilted leaves of spinach with the tines of his fork.

“Like I’ve said before,” Erwin continued, taking a sip of red wine and mulling it around in his mouth, “you intrigue me. There’s something about you, some nagging despair, some anger, something fierce that’s eating away at you from the inside. I can understand that.”

“Oh?” Levi asked listlessly, sure that Erwin was about to order him out of his house, out of this arrangement of pseudo-love, whatever it might happen to be. “Do you, really?”

“I do,” Erwin replied, affirmatively, much to Levi’s surprise. Erwin didn’t look like a man easily controlled by his whims and wanton wishes, and to hear weakness from the mouth of such success was no short of revolutionary. “But that’s a story for another time, and is neither here nor there. There is still so much about you that’s left a mystery, and I am thoroughly determined to get to the bottom of you.”

Erwin’s eyes flashed across the table, ripping Levi away in a current, and he couldn’t find the words in him to protest as Erwin pushed back his chair with a soft skid of wood, walked click clack click over the tiles, shadows glossy, to lay a kiss against Levi’s mouth that was overwhelming in its cruel beauty. Levi clutched at him, drowning, slipping, and wondered finally, truly, if this was what it meant to be loved.  


	10. Chapter 10

Levi woke up the next morning, deliciously sore, twinges of remembered aches in the muscles of his thighs. The soft satin sheets stroked against his bare skin as he rolled over, stretching luxuriously and yawning contented as early morning sunlight painted the swathes of his limbs that peeped out from the covers with soothing warmth. The smell of coffee laced through the air, and Levi inhaled deeply, strong dark roast, maybe a hint of cinnamon, Erwin’s sandalwood and musk smell clinging to the sheets that Levi rolled himself in, hoping to never leave again.

He hadn’t slept in in so long, he’d almost forgotten how, and even when he rolled over, craning his neck to examine the digital display of the clock on the nightstand, the bright cherry red numbers only read 7:23. If he so wanted, he could easily haul himself up out of bed, take a quick shower, toss on the clothes he’d been wearing the day before. Head into the office smelling like Erwin’s shampoo and body wash. Aftershave, too, he thought to himself, running his fingertips along the sparse crop of dark stubble dusting its way over his jaw. The thought of traipsing into the office on a Tuesday morning, wearing the exact outfit he’d worn yesterday, maybe looking a bit rumpled, a bit worse for wear, had him smiling at the expression of shock and envy that would dart over Petra’s face as he plopped down his morning mug of coffee.

If, that was, he chose to go to work at all today. Erwin nudged his way back into the bedroom, dressed to the nines like three-piece suits were designed with him in mind, bearing a tray of breakfast. Toast triangles were arranged neatly around the golden rim of a china plate, a fluffy pile of perfectly scrambled eggs and three crispy strips of bacon in the center. A pale blue ceramic mug of black coffee, complete with its own matching sugar bowl and cream pitcher, rounded out the tray that Erwin set on the nightstand, gently pushing aside the digital clock so Levi could no longer make out the numbers. He scrabbled up so his shoulder blades rested against the headboard, trying to arrange the blankets around him to cover as much skin as possible in an attempt at modesty.

Erwin smiled, patting at a strip of skin on Levi’s thigh that peeped out from between the strips of fabric. “It’s not like I haven’t seen it before,” he said gently, leaning forward to press a kiss to the corner of Levi’s mouth. The scent of sandalwood and musk filled Levi’s nose, heady and intoxicating, and he found his fingertips clenching in the covers, bunching silk between his knuckles as he fought to stop himself from reaching up and grabbing fistfuls of Erwin’s lapels, dragging him down for fuller kisses and wriggling him out of that neat, teasing, utterly damning suit. “Last night was quite memorable.”

“Thanks,” Levi replied, having no witty comeback available to retort with. “I’m just doing my best.”

“Don’t quit your day job,” Erwin teased lightly, pulling back and smiling with more than a trace of fondness. In fact, if Levi had more than a few fleeting seconds in which to study Erwin’s expression, he might have said that it looked dangerously close to affection, if not full-blown love. Not yet.

Levi snorted. “I could say the same thing, but it wouldn’t have too much effect, would it?” He reached over for a triangle of toast, which he gnawed on. It was perfectly buttered, golden and crunchy in his mouth, and if Erwin was bothered by the crumbs scattering over his sheets, he graciously made no mention of it. “What’s your stage name, anyway?”

Erwin eyed him carefully. Levi crunched through the crust, licking his lips free of the fine gloss of butter.

“C’mon,” he cajoled, leaning over to spill a rill of cream into the black coffee, where it swirled a milky beige. In plopped one spoonful of sugar, a second. The handle of the spoon clinked around the china rim as he stirred, the sheets slipping down unconsciously until the sunlight painted all of Levi’s torso with golden fingers. “I promise not to laugh, not even if it’s Candy.”

Erwin took a deep breath. “It’s not something that I’d like to discuss, not this early in the morning.”

Levi took a sip. The coffee was delicious, the flavors melting on his tongue, rich taste. “Why not?” he asked, looking up at Erwin. When Erwin continued to remain silent, Levi just shrugged. “I guess you’re already in lawyering mode, so I shouldn’t get you out of your zone or whatever ritual you have.”

Erwin looked relieved to be let off the hook, and Levi made a mental note to try and tread more subtly down this path of inquiry. Erwin was intriguing, a lawyer by day, a stripper by night, and Levi was determined to get to the bottom of the story.

“Will you be going in to work today?” Erwin asked, the gentle smile back as he stroked the broad pad of an index finger over the line of Levi’s jaw, prickling against the dark stubble. “I could call in sick for you. We could call in sick together, take the day off, go see some sights if you’d like.”

“No, no, that’s okay,” Levi said, shrugging. “I mean, you’re already all dressed for work and everything” – with a gesture towards Erwin’s suit – “and it would certainly be a shame to waste it. I’ll call in, though; I haven’t had a day off in ages and I’d like to spend in doing absolutely nothing. You’ve got a fantastically comfortable bed.” Levi smiled up at Erwin, fluttering his lashes and flicking his tongue over the swell of his bottom lip, gratified to see Erwin’s eyes tracing over the motion. “If you don’t mind, of course.”

“Not at all,” Erwin replied, with a smoothness that lay in contradiction to the hungry look in his eyes. “You’re welcome to stay for as long as you like.”

“What if I say I want to stay forever?”

A pause. Levi held his breath, the thud of his heartbeat in his ears blending in with the distant sounds of traffic.

“Then by all means, stay forever.” With that, and a kiss to the swell of Levi’s cheek, Erwin got up, picked up his leather briefcase, and with a small smile back and a nod, left. The front door clicked shut behind him softly, and Levi was left alone with his thoughts and the plate of rapidly cooling breakfast on the nightstand. He took another sip of coffee, sighing as the warmth flooded through him, laden with the soft and spicy tastes of cinnamon and cream, before setting the cup back on the tray. The food filled his stomach, simple and perfectly made, and he savored each bite before spilling himself out of bed and heading to the neat pile of his clothes Erwin had left on an armchair to search for his phone.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the long hiatus!

Levi could hardly focus at work, consumed as he was with the honeymoon stage of his new relationship with Erwin, and it started to show. He observed Petra’s beauty and those quirky mannerisms of hers that had once been so endearing with a clinical manner, his gaze sweeping across her face with disinterest before he turned back to his computer monitor. He felt sure that Petra was more than a bit confused, and all with good reason; the man he had been before had been completely wrapped around her littlest finger, ready to drop anything and everything for her, if only she would ask. Thinking about his desperate affection made the new and improved Levi shudder, and he tried not to dwell on the pathetic neediness of his past self even as he glanced down at the screen of his phone, waiting for it to buzz with Erwin’s reply to the text message he’d sent not even a minute ago asking if Erwin would like to go to dinner tonight.

A moment later, Erwin’s reply pinged in. “Sure. What time, where?” Levi loved that about him, the way there were no frills, no hidden meanings.

He tapped in a response quickly, ignoring the way Petra’s eyes lingered on him, on his phone as though wondering who he was texting in the middle of the workday. Normally, Levi would never have entertained such a thought; the idea of such unprofessionalism was loathsome. But Erwin was an exception, the paradox to rule all other paradoxes, and Levi was determined to get to the bottom of him or waste away trying.

“I was thinking maybe we could get a burger at 8:30 at that little joint down on 27th, and then we could…you know?” Levi added a small winky emoticon at the end, hoping that it would be enough to convey his intentions. He knew full well that Erwin usually headed over to the strip club Friday evenings, and the dinner place he had in mind was one of those casual greasy-spoon diners with food heavy enough to soak up the free flow of alcohol at Babe 18. Though Levi had every intention of taking full advantage of the open bar the nightclub offered, he also wanted to make sure he was able to fix every detail of tonight in some sort of memory, no matter how hazy it might be around the edges.

A grey bubble with an ellipsis hovered in the corner of his screen. He gave up even attempting to stare at the data on his computer monitor, instead turning all his attention to his phone as he silently begged Erwin to agree to the plan. He’d been whittling away at Erwin’s defenses for weeks, begging and wheedling and pleading, but so far, Erwin had only pushed his inquiries aside or deflected the subject, often so subtly and so smoothly Levi didn’t realize his entreaties had gone unanswered until much later.

The ellipsis disappeared. Reappeared. Disappeared again. Levi ground his teeth in frustration.

“Er, Levi?” Petra’s sweet, honeyed tones floated over to him, and his attention snapped up to her. She was smiling uncertainly at him, and upon closer inspection, Levi could see that the constellation of her freckles was spotted deeper along the bridge of her nose. She’d gotten some sun over the past weekend, and it gave her cheeks a healthy, rosy glow that would have otherwise sent Levi into spasms of delight over her beauty had he not already been so captivated by Erwin’s smooth, cold elegance.

“What is it?” he asked, sounding snippier than he’d meant to; Petra drew back a bit, a ghost of a hurt look dusting across her face.

“I was just wondering if you had plans this weekend?” Her voice lilted up in a question mark at the end. It detracted from her authority, and with a sudden shock, Levi realized that, for the first time since knowing her, he had the upper hand. He was no longer the one giving over his fair share in the relationship; the balance had suddenly shifted, tilting drastically in his favor. His phone buzzed in his hand, but he didn’t look at the message Erwin had sent. No. Not yet.

“Not really,” he hedged, eyeing her carefully. He had always been the one to ask that question before, and being on the receiving side of the inquiry was a new experience. The feeling of being needed, of being wanted, was utterly delightful, and Levi vowed to savor it as long as he possibly could. “Why?”

Petra was squirming, looking uncomfortable in her seat. The sight filled Levi with more joy than it probably should have. “I was just, I was thinking, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go grab coffee,” she stammered, blushing to the roots of her strawberry blonde hair. She looked up at him from under lowered lashes, testing the waters.

But Levi had known her long enough to have a full study in her coquettish flirtations. Though Petra’s undivided attentions and affections had played a starring role in his fantasies for the better part of his time at the office, he found himself no longer in need of them. He was no longer interested in the cheap, 24-hour love she could provide on tap, was no longer interested in the mystery of her, having unraveled it all already.

“No thanks, sorry,” he said, though he was not sorry at all. “I think I’m just going to have a relaxing weekend at home. Been a busy week, you know?”

She looked crushed, disappointed, and Levi wondered if she’d ever felt as gleeful dashing his hopes in the past. The feeling was exhilarating. He dropped his gaze back to his phone while she swept her things into her bag and marched out the office without even sparing him a backwards glance.

Erwin’s text was a single word, filling Levi with even more joy, if that had been possible.

“Fine,” Erwin had said, and Levi couldn’t wipe the grin from his face as he pulled on his light jacket and shut down his workstation, all but bounding out the office door.

* * *

 

Erwin seemed distracted when he met Levi at the burger place on 27th. Even after they’d been ushered into a booth by the teenaged, gum-snapping hostess, Levi couldn’t help but notice Erwin’s fingers drumming restlessly on the sticky linoleum table, couldn’t help but notice the way Erwin’s eyes flitted quickly from one end of the menu to the other and back again.

Perhaps he was nervous. Maybe it was stage fright. Maybe Erwin got like this every time before he went on stage at Babe 18; the mere thought of undressing in front of all those strangers sent a thrill up Levi’s spine.

But he’d never seen Erwin like this. Erwin, usually so calm and composed and put together, was an island in the storm. But even islands eroded and were worn away over the courses of time, Levi amended to himself, and focused instead on making idle chitchat while Erwin’s fingers drummed a tattoo into the tabletop.

He could barely remember what they’d ordered, but after the last bite of burger and last sip of soda was swallowed, Levi was surprised to see that it was Erwin who was now eager to go and get to the club. Erwin paid quickly, tossing down two twenties without bothering to ask for change, and all but hustled Levi out of the diner.

“Whoa, easy there!” Levi said, a laugh in his voice as Erwin nearly pushed him into a mailbox. Erwin’s fingers were wrapped around Levi’s upper arm, pushing and pulling him in the direction of Babe18 in equal measure. “Doesn’t stripping usually start at 10, anyway?” He checked his phone, the sharp white glow pinching at his eyes until he lowered the brightness. “It’s only 9:15. Chill.”

Erwin’s face was inscrutable, though Levi craned his neck back to look up at him, nearly running into a gaggle of early partygoers already drunkenly wending their way along the cracked sidewalks.

“I’m meeting someone there,” Erwin replied when they finally paused another block away to wait for the stoplight to change. The cars whizzed by in a blur of chrome and cherry red taillights, and the laughter of groups of rowdy revelers celebrating the end of another workweek punctuated the night air with their noise and fragrance of cigarette smoke and alcohol. The demons were coming out to play, and Levi had never been more excited.

“Oh yeah?” Levi shouted up at Erwin, struggling to make himself heard over the shrieking giggles of a bunch of sorority girls teetering too-high heels that had just joined them at the corner. “Who are you meeting?”

Erwin waved the question off. “Don’t worry about it,” he grunted noncommittally, and before Levi could press the subject anymore, the light had changed, and Erwin was push-pulling him across the street.

* * *

 

Though the strip shows didn’t start until 10, Babe18 was already almost at capacity. The heavy bass pounded through the thin soles of Levi’s trainers as they approached the bouncer, who nodded Erwin and him in with a short nod and a lifting of the velvet rope while other groups of people in the queue protested behind them. The heavy blanket of cigarette smoke and sticky alcohol descended over Levi like a fog as he followed Erwin down the stairs, and after installing him at the bar and pressing an absentminded kiss to his forehead, Erwin told him to be good and to enjoy the show. Levi sipped at his whiskey Coke slowly, his eyes trained on the stage, absentmindedly people watching while he waited for the show to start.

He wondered what had been so urgent that Erwin had needed to get here at – he checked his phone – 9:31. Sure, he’d have to get himself into different clothes and maybe put on a bit of makeup, but how long could that possibly take? And Erwin had said he’d been meeting someone. Levi took another sip of his whiskey Coke, savoring the burn and the bubbles in his throat. The bartender had been particularly heavy handed with the Jack Daniels, a trait that Levi appreciated.

The alcohol lubricated his thoughts, made them slick and gentle and malleable in Levi’s mind. No, he hardly thought Erwin was cheating on him; he didn’t look the type at all, and he’d been the one to pursue Levi, first. He was still the giver in the relationship, and givers didn’t cheat. Perhaps he was meeting an old friend. Maybe they’d been Chippendales dancers together. Levi snickered at the thought even as his mouth went dry at it.

He ordered another whiskey Coke after the first was gone, sipping at this one as slow as possible and watching carefully over the rim of his cup as the lights started to train bright neon beams on the stage, and the first girl came onstage. Even with a full outfit, she was more skin than not, her smile garishly red with lipstick as she slipped out of her silky wrap, letting it puddle to the floor of the brightly-lit stage with a flourish. Cheers erupted from the crowd surrounding the stage as she licked tantalizingly at her upper lip, her hips swaying provocatively as she leaned down to pluck bills from their upraised hands. Levi sipped at his drink disinterestedly. His palm was wet with condensation from the glass, and he swapped hands, rubbing the palm of his now-free one against the thigh of his jeans as he waited.

Erwin was the last stripper to participate in that Friday’s show, and Levi was already halfway through his third whiskey Coke, his bladder starting to feel uncomfortably full. His thoughts had started to go slippery as Erwin all but pranced on-stage, but they focused back into crystal sharp clarity as he looked up at the stage in awe.

Gone was the restlessness, the nervousness, the utter discomfort that had crossed over Erwin’s face in the diner. In its place was a brilliant, confident sauciness that took Levi’s breath away. There was a fierce, bright gleam in Erwin’s eyes, sweeping over the crowd until they settled on him, still a lurking silhouette by the open bar, and Levi’s mouth went dry as Erwin’s gaze pierced him to the core. He looked wildly ecstatic, all but tearing off his clothes, and the cheers filled Levi’s ears with deafening white noise. Green littered the stage, and though most of Erwin’s skin was already on display, Levi couldn’t bring himself to tear his eyes away from Erwin’s face.

He was arrested, captivated, drowning in the same brilliant madcap hysteria written over Erwin’s expression, spinning him around and around in circles until Erwin blew kisses to the crowd and pivoted on the sharp spike of his black leather thigh high boot and disappeared backstage.

* * *

 

“Well?” Erwin asked, the model of professionalism once more as they finally stepped out of the club at a little past one. Levi was a little giddy from the alcohol, his senses just this side of dulled, and he leaned heavily against Erwin as Erwin waved his arm for a cab. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

“I did,” Levi agreed, giggling as Erwin pushed him into the backseat of the taxi. The sticky leather seats squeaked beneath him. “You looked so…so…invigorating,” he murmured, grasping for words that failed him.

“Thanks,” Erwin replied, shutting the door and giving the driver his address before slumping back against the seat and letting his eyes drift closed.

“Hey.” Levi prodded his arm. Now that he had Erwin all to himself again, he wanted to continue his earlier line of questioning. “Who did you meet before? An old friend or something?”

Erwin waved his hand at Levi lethargically, a silent way of telling him to fuck off, and Levi lapsed back into silence as he stared at Erwin’s strong profile. The orange lights of the street lamps flickered across his face and threaded through his hair, and though he’d looked so alive earlier, there was no denying that that burst of exuberant energy had drained him. His breathing was slow and deep, the first onsets of sleep, and Levi patted at Erwin’s hand where it lay on the seat between them. It was lovely and cool to the touch, and he threaded his fingers through Erwin’s slack ones as the taxi sped through the night.

He had to half-drag Erwin out of the taxi when it deposited them in front of Erwin’s house in the Haight-Ashbury District, had to fumble in Erwin’s jeans pocket for his keys. Erwin’s weight was heavy and dead against his shoulder, but the mild intoxication hadn’t worn off yet, and Levi found it sloppily charming. He’d take care of Erwin, the best way he knew how.

He slotted the key home, turning the lock and stumbling inside.

As he gently tugged Erwin’s clothes off and chucked them into the laundry hamper, pushing and prodding and pulling Erwin into bed, Levi resolved to start being the giver more often.


	12. Chapter 12

The relationship accelerated in a way that Levi had never thought himself capable of handling, and the speed and ferocity of its development was both exhilarating and terrifying all at once. Levi’s belongings began to litter the free space in Erwin’s apartment, his own minimalist clutter turning the large, once foreboding house, into an equally large but slightly more comforting home. Erwin didn’t seem to mind, and even cleared out small spaces in his dressers and wardrobes for Levi’s neatly folded piles of clothes.

“You may as well give up your apartment,” Erwin informed him one night, a long, lazy summer night when Levi lay tangled with him in the sheets, sticky skin cooling against each other. “You’re here more often than not.”

“Maybe,” Levi agreed, trying to keep his tone as languid as possible even though his heart was rabbiting violently in his chest. He hoped Erwin couldn’t feel his eagerness; it wouldn’t do to always be the one left wanting in the rare event that Erwin was compelled to say no. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

Erwin laughed, a rich, hearty sound that pooled in Levi’s heart and filled him to overflowing. “Impose?” he asked, his question almost a purr as he wrapped his arm more tightly around Levi’s shoulders. “Hardly, darling. You’ve inserted yourself so neatly into my life that it’s hard for me to imagine how I ever got by without you?”

“Really?” Levi asked, his voice hopeful and delighted as he laid a kiss against Erwin’s chest. His pulse beat thick and strong against his lips. “You think so?”

“I know so,” Erwin replied, his voice softer now. “And there’s still so much that I’ve got to find out about you. You’ve resisted my advances surprisingly well.”

“What do you want to know?” Levi asked, his hair a dark sunburst against the lightly tanned skin of Erwin’s chest. “I’ll tell you everything.”

“Well, now, that would be too easy,” Erwin said, a laugh bubbling in his throat as he carded his fingers through Levi’s damp, dark hair. “It wouldn’t be just for you to give up everything like that.”

“That’s rich, coming from you,” Levi snorted, nuzzling up into Erwin’s touch. “Mr. hotshot lawyer, telling me what is and isn’t just. I know you attorney types, playing with your words and twisting the concept of fairness. How do I know your sense of justice isn’t completely skewed?”

“You have no idea,” Erwin admitted softly, his fingers scratching lightly against Levi’s scalp. “And I’ll admit my sense of justice is, ah, more skewed than most attorneys’.”

“Really now?” Levi asked, quirking an eyebrow up at Erwin. “How so?”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Erwin tutted, swatting Levi’s upper arm lightly. “It wouldn’t be just for me to give up everything like that.”

Levi huffed, rolling his eyes and doing his best to not smile in response to Erwin’s lazy, self-assured grin. “Are you really gonna make me work for it?” he asked, wheedling and doing his best to put on as adorable of a face as he could manage.

“I really am,” Erwin replied, tugging the sheets up more comfortably around them as Levi nestled into the hollow of his body.

“Why’s that?” Levi asked, his eyelids growing heavy as Erwin massaged soft circles into the small of Levi’s back, soothing.

“Some things are better left unknown,” Erwin murmured back in response, “and you may not like the person I am if you find out everything about me.”

“Impossible,” Levi slurred, and he would have pursued the line of inquiry further, sensing Erwin’s façade starting to chip away, had his tired body not held his mind hostage in the depths of his dreams. When he woke up the next morning, seagulls were cawing raucously outside the window, and the world was spinning madly on. Erwin was moving about in the kitchen already, dishes clinking together, the scent of dark roast coffee heavy in the air, and Levi stretched languidly as he tugged on Erwin’s discarded shirt from last night and headed to the kitchen, all questions forgotten in the light of the new day.

* * *

 

“You’re in love,” Petra said, miserably, her eyes too downcast to be joking, and Levi felt a half-second of pity before remembering that she’d never even so much as given him a second glance in the past. “Is she pretty?”

Levi took a moment to gloat over at her before replying. “He,” he stated, laying emphasis on the first word, “is quite handsome, yes.” Her eyes grew round like saucers, and she stammered, blushed, nearly knocked over her coffee into the potted plant next to their desk before hastily mumbling an excuse that she had to use the restroom.

The victory felt shallow, and Levi could only savor it for the next few minutes as his eyes scanned over the data spreadsheets and he considered his relationship with Erwin. It was certainly hard to be objective in the heat of the moment, but now, with the distance of a few city blocks and several hours of the workday still ahead of him, Levi found himself idly considering Erwin’s proposition about giving up his apartment. It would make sense, certainly; he lived at Erwin’s house in the Haight-Ashbury District most of the time, and the twenty-two hundred he sank into the apartment for rent every month could quickly pad his checkings account comfortably.

But there was that whole thing about dependence, too, that Levi was hung up on. He certainly didn’t want Erwin to feel obligated to taking care of him; Levi had been doing that quite well on his own for years now. And what if he and Erwin fell out of love with each other? He’d be out of both a lover and a place to live, and would be well and truly screwed.

Petra came back from the bathroom with red eyes and smeared mascara, and Levi marveled that he’d ever been in a position of emotional power beneath her. She pinched at the bridge of her nose as she sat back down at her desk, pointedly avoiding Levi’s eyes, and he decided to make the split decision then.

“I’ll put the apt up on market,” he texted Erwin, his heart skipping a beat as he saw the read receipt pop up almost immediately.

“Good to hear it.” A small smiley face emoji followed, along with a heart, and Levi sighed giddily as he clicked his phone off and placed it on his desk next to his keyboard and began the process of giving his landlord his month’s notice.


	13. Chapter 13

It had been so long since Levi had lived with another person that he had almost forgotten how to. Wherever he turned, he found bits and pieces of Erwin – silver cufflinks left carelessly in a brightly painted ceramic fingerbowl on the kitchen counter, the ribbon of a silky tie draped over the back of a chair, the closet hanging full of ghostly dress shirts in plastic dry cleaners’ bags, waiting for Erwin to step into them again.

That, and the boxes of neatly folded clothes stuffed at the bottom of Erwin’s closet, filled with layers of silk and shorts far too small and leather boots with a shine that made Levi’s eyes water as he clicked the heels on the floor, absentmindedly noting that they were Erwin’s size.

He had been free to come and go, using the silver key Erwin had slipped into his jeans pocket in the middle of a kiss, and he used it liberally, creaking open the door on its well oiled hinges at all hours of the morning and night. Erwin never seemed to mind, though Levi had noted a marked, frankly, exciting change in the other man on some occasions when he’d deigned to come back in the middle of the night. Fire ran deep through Erwin’s veins, infecting Levi with its contagious energy, and he fell deeper down the rabbit hole with every passing day. He fell in love with the flare ups, and if he subconsciously waited to come home until he was sure Erwin had a good chance of being in the throes of conflagration, well, that was his own business.

But Erwin left ashes behind, as all fires do, and Levi began to resent the clean up. He began to hate the pounding headaches Erwin woke up with, the fuzzy syllables, the bloodshot eyes and the stale smell that would cling to the bed sheets in the bright sobering light of day.

“What is it?” he demanded to know, after Erwin had finished loving him and they lay sticky, entangled in the linen. Erwin’s pulse raced against Levi’s wrist, and somewhere in the bowels of the city, a siren wailed, growing louder with every passing second. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing,” Erwin insisted, but the siren flashed past the window, its bright blues and reds piercing right through the gauzy white curtains enough for Levi to see Erwin’s eyes swamped with black. He looked ecstatic, euphoric, reeling in a way that Levi was intently jealous of; what would it be like to feel that way? he wondered grimly to himself even as he watched Erwin’s eyelashes fluttering, drifting off into hypnotic sleep. He shook Erwin’s shoulder, sticky warm skin in the palm of his hand, but Erwin had already fallen asleep.

Levi found the baggie of crystal pure powder on a Friday night when Erwin was working late at the office, wondering about the fires. He had pinched it between his fingers curiously, the thoughts racing through his mind and yet finding that they had already existed long ago. He had suspected, had known, somewhere in the back of his mind, perhaps, that there was only one true explanation. It still cut him to the quick, the sudden sweeping knowledge that Erwin was not invincible, that Erwin could be predicted and read as easy as any other man. He had tucked the baggie of powder back where he’d found it beneath some of Erwin’s folded ties, smoothing out the wrinkles in the silky fabric and leaving it exactly as it had been, but Erwin figured it out his discovery quickly.

“You know.” It was a flat admission, and Levi wondered for a fleeting moment if he, too, could be read, if his ill-gotten knowledge had been written in his eyes the whole time.

“I do,” he replied, closing the book he had been skimming and setting it down on the glass coffee table with a firm thud. The storyline had all but faded out of his mind as the hours had passed, and he’d spent more and more time glancing at the digital display on the wall clock and waiting for Erwin to come home.

“Gonna try to drag me to one of those anonymous support groups?” Erwin asked, shrugging off his coat and hanging it on a hook by the door before toeing off his shoes and running a hand through his hair, pulling it into artful disarray. “Gonna leave?” His voice was rough, raspy, and Levi was alarmed for half a second, until Erwin turned to him with a look of schooled, stony disinterest in any of the help Levi might have been wont to offer.

“No,” Levi said, the word hanging heavy in his mouth, reluctant to leave his lips even as he spat it out. “I’m a firm believer in doing whatever the hell you want to yourself.”

“That so, Levi?” Erwin asked, a wry smile quirking the corners of his lips.

“That is so,” Levi affirmed, thinking back to all the regrets his mother had expressed. Never going to Paris, like she had planned. Never having the opportunity to smash her wedding china into pieces on the ground. Never feeling the liquid rush of narcotics in her veins, just once, just to see what it would feel like, just to see if it could let her fly. “You’re a grown man. You’re perfectly capable of making your own decisions. Though I do want to know one thing.” Erwin watched him cautiously, heading over to slowly settle onto the sofa beside Levi, his expression open. Waiting. Expectant. “Why?”

“That’s a very open question, Levi,” Erwin scolded him gently, his eyebrows furrowing as he tried to reason out an answer. “I suppose the easiest reply would be to ask you if you’ve never wanted to be yourself.”

“All the time,” Levi muttered. “You have no idea.”

“That’s the reason for everything, isn’t it?” Erwin quipped, standing up again and padding to the kitchen to rummage through the drawers for something. Levi pinched at the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the storm of a migraine he could feel building behind his eyes. And yet, and yet, there was that tiny nagging sense of unease worming its way into the pit of his belly. Considering.

“I never thought you’d be like this,” he said, faintly, but he wasn’t sure if he was saying it to Erwin or to himself. Erwin didn’t respond, and the digital display ticked onward.


	14. Chapter 14

Levi could hardly focus. The data blurred into meaningless columns of equally meaningless numbers in front of his eyes, and without Petra's attempts to distract him, he could no longer find purpose. His pen tapped out a restless staccato on a thick stack of surveys he was supposed to be cross-checking from the New York office, but he could not keep his mind from straying to the plastic baggie of powder he had found in Erwin's dresser. Curiosity killed the cat, he thought wryly to himself. The minute hand ticked onwards. Tap, tap, tap. The water cooler burbled frantically in the corner, and Levi was wilting away. 

He clocked out two hours early that day, complaining of a sudden onset of food sickness that he could tell his boss wasn't buying, and he slung his coat over his arm as he hurried out of the stuffy office into the unseasonable bright warmth of the day. The tourists and office drones taking a late lunch were out in full force, and Levi was buffeted from all sides by the swarms of traffic that just barely managed to part around him like a river against a sheet of rock. 

But even those were worn down quickly, and Levi could already feel his heartbeat inching upwards with every second his feet kept him rooted to the sidewalk. 

Drugs. He'd been warned about those, from the very first time he stepped foot into high school in one of the rougher areas of the city, had even experimented with a few in college. But tame things only, the pungent acrid taste of pot lingering in the back of his throat and wreathing his thoughts with a thick fog of smoke that had him collapsing helplessly against the back of the couch, giggling uncontrollably; a pill of ecstasy slipped into his mouth by a particularly adventurous girl at a rave in the backyard of a frat house that had been quickly broken up by patrolling cops in the area, there via an anonymous tip. 

He suspected that whatever it was Erwin had been hiding was something far more serious, something darker. 

And yet. 

He allowed the whirlpool to carry his numb body along the streets, his footsteps leading him faithfully back home until the crowds thinned out and he was left to walk up the glistening white steps to Erwin's house alone. He swallowed roughly. Slotted the key into the lock, hoping against hope that he would wake up. 

Erwin was home, too, and this fact surprised Levi more than anything else. 

"It's a workday," he started, his tone accusatory, uncaring of the fact that he, too, had left early. "What are you doing back?"

"Could ask you the same question," Erwin said, flatly, shrugging. He was dull, had lost that sparkle, that luster that Levi craved. "Didn't much feel like working today. Things have been a bit off around here, and I wanted to rectify it as quickly as possible." 

It was the understatement of the century. A bit off was a bit off in itself, and he found himself struggling for words. 

"Are you going to stop?" Levi blurted out, hands gripping at the doorjamb to steady himself, no doubt leaving nervous fingerprints all over the woodwork. If Erwin noticed, he said nothing about it, barely glancing over his shoulder at Levi. "I mean, don't feel that you need to stop on my account, but -" 

"But?" Erwin prodded him gently. "You would feel more comfortable if I didn't, correct?"

It was a leading question, and Levi reached up to loosen the knot of his tie, which had seemed to tighten strong around his windpipe ever since he'd walked into the room. He wanted to answer honestly, wanted to agree, wanted desperately to do the right thing. The stockpiled answer was burning on the tip of his tongue - Yes, yes, I want you to stop, you're out of control - except it didn't feel right, the texture of the words gritty and rough in his mouth. Erwin was far from out of control, was far from going mindless with it, and Levi was already a firm advocate of the self-destruction theory. His mind raced for ways to extricate himself from the situation, and found himself lacking. 

"Well?" Erwin wanted to know. "You should let me know now. I can be more discreet, I've done it before. But don't fool yourself into thinking that it'll be easy for me to change. This -" he held up the little baggie that Levi had come to associate with a dreadful rush of anticipation, the quick emergence of the Erwin that had reeled him in, hook, line, and sinker - "was around long before you, and will probably continue long after. I need to know if you're fine with that." 

The fist in Levi's chest loosened, went slack, the anchor reeling out and unspooling deep inside him so that it left his head unsteady and he was answering before he could fully grasp the consequences of his words. "I am," he breathed out, one rush, the words mashed together into one, and he could see Erwin sighing, his shoulders dipping and the tension leaching out of him, as though he'd just been waiting for Levi's go ahead. "But you have to tell me what it is. Is it clean? Are you?" 

Levi expected a disparaging look, but Erwin gave him nothing of the sort. His smile was free, easy, hair falling out of its neatly pomaded style as though he'd been running his hands through it in the same nervous anticipation of confrontation Levi had felt. "I'm very safe, and you are, too," he assured him in words that brooked no argument. "It's just for recreation; it's not like on those television shows you like watching, where a user gets roped into becoming a dealer in order to pay off their debt. We're not exactly wanting for money." He used the all-inclusive we, locking Levi tight into his crimes and petty dalliances, and, much to his surprise, Levi found that he didn't mind. 

Carpe diem, his mother had scrawled as her parting signature, in a thick, uneven scrawl over Benjamin's tight expression of disapproval. Seize the moment, darling Levi, and take whatever life has to offer you. There is no good, there is no bad. It just is. 

"It's H," Erwin continued, beckoning Levi forward, and Levi was drawn towards him, drawn into his orbit. He opened the baggie just a touch. Up close, the dazzling white of the crystals was stunning. "Do you want to try it?" 

He swallowed roughly. Seize the moment. 

"No, no," he managed to cough out. It was one thing he wasn't willing to do, the poison riding an itch through his veins like the bags of chemicals they'd shot through his mother at the end, assuring him that it would help, that surely this time, this time, this time would be the time the rest of the cancer cells would be wiped out, and every time preceded another in a vicious cycle. "I think I'll pass." 

"Alright, then. Suit yourself," Erwin replied, with a small shrug as he zipped the baggie closed again. "You'll probably live longer. But a good life, and a short one, I suppose." 

"Maybe," Levi said uncertainly, staring at the paraphernalia in the small cabinet drawer Erwin had opened, sliding seamlessly open on its casters for him to place the bag of powder back. Syringes in their sterile packaging gleamed bright and shiny, dark rubber tourniquets, silver spoons and gleaming engraved lighters. "Will you...show me? What it's like?" 

Curiosity. 

Erwin arched an eyebrow at him. "Show you?" he repeated.

"Yeah," Levi breathed, warming to the idea. The syringes winked brightly at him, promising a heaven he could not bring himself to taste. "Show me everything." 

Erwin's smile was glittering at the corners as he pressed a kiss to Levi's mouth, one, another, harder, swearing to Levi that he would show him everything he could. The secrets fell away, puddling to the floor like silky scraps of cloth, and Levi drank in every syllable, every fluid motion of Erwin's hands as he tied the tourniquet off tightly, the hiss and spark of a lighter, the acrid scent of burning and the white slowly melting into black in dangerous alchemy. 

His eyes watched carefully, noting every hiss and sigh as Erwin's thumb carefully toggled the plunger, pressing the fluid into his veins. The release of the tourniquet, the breathless jolting moment as he watched Erwin brighten, glow, incandesce, his skin so hot Levi felt that he might burn pressed against Erwin in his gray wingback Eames chair. 

He chased the fire with his tongue and found himself growing addicted to the ashes. Love made a mockery of them all, and Levi was a fool. 


	15. Chapter 15

Like this, Erwin was beautiful. Like this, Levi found himself falling more in love with every passing moment. Stale sheets wrapped loosely around Erwin's body, shuddering itself apart with every ragged breath, a heavy crystal tumbler of melting ice and 20 year old Scotch on the nightstand that Levi sipped at every once in a while as he and Erwin talked philosophy and religion and what it was like to phosphoresce. 

Levi grew used to seeing it, the paraphernalia, the actions, the aftermath, and though he didn't particularly relish the last part of it, everything leading up to that was glorious. His fingers began to itch when he heard Erwin's keys slotting into the lock, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he began to wonder what they would discuss today. He was learning more and more about Erwin with every passing day, Erwin pulling him into his orbit, a gravitation that Levi was helpless to even consider resisting. Rather, he encouraged it, encouraged and enabled and all the other harmful action verbs he'd been trained on in a narcotics seminar in college. 

And yet he abstained. Continued to abstain. This was less out of a desire to pass the random drug checks his workplace employed and more out of a need to fix Erwin tightly into his memory. Stars burnt out quickly, and he had happened upon Erwin at the very brightest point in their lives. 

Erwin had all but given up going out on Friday evenings, the shiny clothes and leather boots growing dusty from disuse in a cardboard box tucked away in a closet. Levi didn't mind. The nights were just as colorful, anyway, with half-made promises of love and half-made wishes for a future that Levi didn't think either of them had in them. Not with each other, at least. There was a nagging thought in the back of his mind that told him with stunning clarity that this couldn't go on, that one day something bad would happen, and maybe he'd pull and prod and tug at the edges of their relationship until it unraveled. It was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, and with this mindset Levi pushed at the both of them, wanting to see how much either of them could take. 

As it turned out, Erwin broke first.

* * *

 

"I've got to cut back on all this," Erwin said. It was a fall evening, nearly eight months since Levi had moved in, and the air was crisp and cold, the chill seeping up through the hardwood floorboards into the bare soles of Levi's feet as he stood at the kitchen counter and idly picked through a salad he had brought home from a formal lunch at work. He looked up, a slight frown on his face. The fluorescent kitchen lights and the fading grayness from outside painted over Erwin's skin, which seemed to have grown tighter over the high planes of his cheekbones in recent weeks. Bruises collected like storm clouds beneath his eyes, and Levi caught motion in the corner of his vision; Erwin's fingers were drumming over the clean tile quickly, repetitively, trying to bore a hole in the ceramic. 

"On what?" Levi asked, popping a cherry tomato into his mouth and frowning at the acid taste. Far too sour. He knew exactly what Erwin meant, but took his time chewing, as though he could delay the moment of truth. 

"On everything," Erwin sighed, reaching up with his free hand to run his hand through his hair. It had lost its luster, and gleamed dully in the glow. He pulled back his hand tentatively, looking at his palm as though expecting to find something in it. An answer, perhaps? Levi speared a leaf of limp iceberg lettuce thoughtfully, watching as Erwin swept his hand vaguely in front of him, as though it could encompass his meaning and the enormity that lay behind it. "I really have to."

"Do you?" Levi asked, a sick feeling gnawing at the pit of his stomach as he abandoned his salad. "Do you really?"

"I really do," Erwin replied. "It's becoming a distraction instead of an amusement."

"And what's so wrong about distractions?" Levi wanted to know, too aware of what he was doing as he sidled around the counter towards Erwin to wrap his arms around Erwin's waist. His hands found their way under the starch of Erwin's shirt, stroked circles into clammy skin. No, this really wouldn't do; he was used to Erwin burning hot, burning through time and air and space, and Levi had never been good at not being selfish. "Aren't all things some form of distraction?"

erwin made no attempt to push him away, even as Levi pressed small kisses into his neck where his pulse beat slow and sluggish. "It's a particularly bad form of distraction," Erwin said, tiredly, nudging Levi away lightly with his hip. "Sorry." 

He left Levi standing by the kitchen counter as he retreated into their bedroom, closing the door lightly behind him, and Levi had a sudden inexplicable urge to shatter something against the wall. He wanted the sounds of cracking, of tinkling shards on the floor, wanted the rush of adrenaline that would remind him that there was more to living than this grey monotony. 

And, he decided grimly to himself without being fully aware of the consequences of his actions, if Erwin wasn't going to allow him that one small token, Levi would have to grab happiness for himself.

* * *

 

Erwin was better at resisting the charms of the baggie of powder tucked away in the back of his dresser than Levi would have thought him capable of, but Levi was worse at resisting the allure of the high-strung, breakneck Erwin he was so fond of. The Erwin that went out in the daytime and led a clean, quiet lifestyle was of no consequence, and Levi couldn't remember the person he was without selfishness. 

"Are you sure you're okay?" he would ask, and Erwin would frown, his fingers digging into the armrests of a chair in the living room, and would turn away from Levi's question. Tension grew thick between them, and more often than not, Levi would curl up on his side of the bed and try not to think about the cold sobriety of the man lying at his back. 

"Fine," Erwin would reply back, tersely, but Levi couldn't deny the fact that slowly, but surely, he was starting to fall out of love. Are you sure we're okay? he wanted to ask, but he buttoned his lip, sure that Erwin wouldn't reply and knowing for himself what the answer was.

* * *

 

His opportunity came a few weeks later, when October had rolled around and the shops were putting Halloween decorations in the plate glass front windows. Petra had resigned, had left her desk just two days ago, saying she was returning to school to pursue a doctorate, and her desk sat empty and unused across from Levi, whose eyes couldn't stop straying to the spot where she had once been. The blankness was unsettling, to say the least, and he could hardly stop his fingers from drumming anxiously at the table, his eyes flitting from one end of his computer monitor to the other. 

It was Erwin's birthday that weekend, and Levi already had a present tucked away inside his messenger bag, wrapped in a small manila envelope for later. The packets of powder had been hard to come by, several nights spent out late on the worse parts of the city, his hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets as he skulked around in the shadows. But here they were, tucked surreptitiously into an inside pocket of his bag, and his eyes were frantically watching the little clock in the bottom corner of his screen until it ticked to five and he was free to go. He clicked off his computer, swung his messenger bag onto his shoulder, and bolted out the door before anyone could ask him where he was going, what he was up to.

Erwin was already home when he got back, already looking the worse for wear, his briefcase laid haphazard on the dining room table and his jacket already flung messily over the back of his chair. 

"Happy birthday," Levi greeted him, bending down to press a kiss to his cheek. A five o'clock shadow marched across Erwin's face, scratching against Levi's skin. "I've got you something special."

Erwin looked up at him dully, lethargically. Unexcited. "Thank you," he said, heavily, watching as Levi sat down across from him and unbuckled the clasps of his bag. His gaze turned to alarm as Levi pulled out the manila packet, pulled out the packets of powders. "Levi." Erwin's expression was disapproving. "I can't accept this."

"You can't, or you won't?" Levi asked, frowning as he pinched at the zips of the baggies. He sighed dramatically, feeling guilty at the way he was winding Erwin up. 

"Won't," Erwin said, with a shrug. "You know I've been trying to cut back a bit. Get more in touch with other things." 

Yes. Levi knew that all too well, but yet he pressed on. 

"It's your birthday," Levi said, frowning. "Once more can't hurt." 

Erwin was shaking his head, but Levi soldiered on. He was getting tired of the dullness and the interminable monotony of their days. He was in love with Erwin and not in love with him, and he wanted to make it a constant. He longed for the excitement and the secondhand rush that Erwin gave him whenever the needle pulled away and the tourniquet lay limp and loose on the bed, having served its purpose. 

"Come on," Levi wheedled, pulling out all the stops, pushing himself out of the chair and waltzing into Erwin's lap. He could feel the tenseness of Erwin's muscles through the thin layers of cloth that separated them, the clench, the pull, and he reached up to stroke a hand through Erwin's hair. He laid a kiss against Erwin's temple, feeling the pulse on his lips. "Otherwise it'll all go to waste, and I paid excellent money for this." 

Erwin was crumbling with every word, and Levi ignored the way the victory layered over his tongue sour and acerbic as Erwin finally, finally! nodded and acquiesced. 

"I love you," Levi breathed, pressing the plastic packets into Erwin's hand. 

"And I you," Erwin replied, smiling bitterly even as he took Levi by the hand and led the both of them into the bedroom. 


End file.
